Identity security and Zero Trust
Identity is the path attackers actually use, so it is the one we close first. We assess against the CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model, remove standing privilege, and phase the work so legacy systems do not stall the program.
Bought under NAICS 541512 and 541519.
What this service does
Once an adversary holds a valid token they stop looking like an attack and start looking like a user. That is why identity, not the network edge, is where the meaningful defensive work now sits.
Federal agencies have been working to the Zero Trust direction set out in OMB Memorandum M-22-09, issued in January 2022, and the CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model gives everyone a common way to score progress across its pillars. We use that model so your result is comparable, portable, and defensible rather than a vendor's opinion.
The work is vendor-neutral. We do not resell an identity platform, and a recommendation to configure what you already own correctly is a perfectly good outcome.
What we assess and protect
- Human identity: authentication strength, lifecycle, and joiner-mover-leaver process
- Non-human identity: service principals, managed identities, and API keys nobody owns
- Privileged access: standing rights, just-in-time elevation, and admin path separation
- Device posture and whether compliance state is actually enforced
- Conditional access policy, including the gap between what is logged and what is blocked
- Application consent, OAuth grants, and third-party access to your tenant
- Legacy authentication paths that bypass everything above
How the work runs
Select any stage in the diagram to see what happens there. The same model drives the engagement plan you receive.
Select any element to see what we assess there. The loop from continuous check back to the policy decision is the part most implementations are missing.
Identity inventory
Every identity that can reach something: human, service, workload, and third-party. The non-human identities are typically the ones nobody can name an owner for, and they usually hold more privilege than the humans.
Maturity assessment
Scored pillar by pillar against the CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model, so you can show progress in a form an auditor or an agency sponsor recognizes.
Attack-path analysis
We map the privilege chains that lead from an ordinary account to administrative control, using the same techniques our red team uses. This is where theory meets your actual configuration.
Policy design
Conditional access and enforcement policy designed to bite rather than to log. A policy in report-only mode is a report, not a control.
Phased rollout
Sequenced so the systems that can adopt modern authentication do so first, while legacy systems get compensating controls and monitoring. Nothing gets switched on without a tested rollback.
Verification
We retest the paths we identified to confirm they are closed, rather than asking you to take the architecture on faith.
What you receive
- Complete identity inventory including non-human identities
- CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model scoring across every pillar
- Privilege-escalation path analysis with evidence
- Target architecture and conditional access policy design
- Phased implementation roadmap with rollback plans
- Legacy system register with compensating controls
- Verification retest of the paths identified
Where most programs stall
Three things stop Zero Trust programs, and all three are predictable.
The first is scope: trying to do every pillar at once instead of closing the credential path that attackers actually use. The second is legacy: a handful of systems that cannot do modern authentication, treated as a blocker rather than as an isolation problem. The third is enforcement: policies that run in report-only mode for a year because nobody wants to be the person who broke sign-in.
We plan for all three up front, which is why the roadmap you receive is phased rather than aspirational.
Who performs the work
Swif7Edge is small on purpose. The people who scope your engagement are the people who run it.
Our practice was founded by U.S. Army veterans. The security side is led by a combat veteran and former NSA contractor with 26 years in security engineering, who has built and led teams of more than 130 engineers, stood up global security operations centers, and directed offensive security work for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, and the U.S. Marine Corps.
That background is company-stated. Specific engagements are covered by non-disclosure terms and in most cases by the sensitivity of the work itself, so we do not detail them publicly. We will substantiate it directly during a procurement, with references and whatever contract detail can be released.
The strategy side brings more than 20 years across the Intelligence Community, the Department of Defense, and Fortune 500 operations, managing portfolios above $150 million and cross-functional teams of up to 2,500 personnel.
Credentials held on the team
- Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
- Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
- GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN)
- GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH)
- GIAC Assessing and Auditing Wireless Networks (GAWN)
We do not publish client names, logos, or case studies. The work is mostly covered by non-disclosure terms, and a small firm that lists logos it cannot substantiate is making a claim it cannot stand behind. The certifications and registrations above are independently checkable, and the methodologies on each service page are named rather than described. Everything we say about our own history is company-stated and we label it that way.
Scope it before you budget it
Tell us the environment and the obligation. We will come back with the approach, the duration, and what drives the price — before anyone asks you for a number.
Common questions
If what you need is not here, ask us directly rather than filling in a form.
No. Multi-factor authentication strengthens one check at one moment. Zero Trust is continuous verification of identity, device, and context on every request, with enforcement that can revoke access mid-session. Adversary-in-the-middle phishing kits defeat basic MFA by stealing the session token rather than the password, which is exactly the gap continuous verification closes.
Some legacy systems cannot participate in modern authentication, and pretending otherwise is how Zero Trust programs stall. We identify those systems early, place compensating controls around them, and phase the rollout so the things that can move do, while the things that cannot are isolated and monitored.
No. We are deliberately vendor-neutral. Our recommendations are architectural and map to the CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model pillars. If the right answer is to configure what you already own properly, that is what the report will say.