Federal agencies currently face the challenge of striking the right balance between modernizing IT systems, effectively defending against cyber threats, and ensuring mission continuity across increasingly complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments. During the recent Veeam Virtual Federal Meetup, hosted in partnership with Merlin Cyber, federal data resilience leaders explored how extending Zero Trust principles to data protection and recovery can fundamentally strengthen cyber resilience.
Veeam’s Data Resilience & Protection for Microsoft 365 is on track to achieve FedRAMP Moderate authorization by the end of Q1 2026, reinforcing Veeam’s commitment and suitability for securing mission-critical workloads and compliance-driven environments.
To ensure fail-safe operational continuity amid breaches increasingly affecting mission-critical systems and data, Veeam experts emphasized the need for architectures that assume compromise and prioritize trusted, malware-free recovery. This means separating backup software, data movement, and storage; enforcing identity-first access controls; and validating backup integrity so agencies can conduct audits and incident response reviews with confidence.
Zero Trust does not stop at users and networks – it must also include systems and data. Veeam’s Zero Trust Data Resilience (ZTDR) architecture applies Zero Trust principles – explicit verification, least-privilege access, and blast-radius reduction – to backup and recovery. Immutability, multi-zone resilience, and cryptographic enforcement ensure data remains protected from external and insider threats throughout the recovery process.
Zero Trust Data Resilience depends not only on protecting backups, but on trusting the cryptography that secures them. Veeam’s integration with InfoSec Global Federal extends cyber resilience by delivering deep cryptographic visibility, control, and governance across complex federal environments.
Through this integration, agencies can:
By aligning backup, recovery, and security with strong cryptographic posture management, Veeam and InfoSec Global Federal help agencies ensure recovery operations remain trusted, auditable, and resilient at a foundational level.
Veeam Backup & Replication v13 updates highlight how modern data protection capabilities align with federal Zero Trust mandates:
These capabilities enable federal agencies to protect and recover data with speed, security and simplicity while minimizing operational risk and attack surface.
Technology alone is not enough. Agencies must also understand where they are on the resilience journey. Veeam’s Data Resilience Maturity Model (DRMM) is a framework that helps federal agencies benchmark their current state, identify gaps across people, processes, and technology, and prioritize roadmap improvements in backup, recovery, and security.
For additional insights, join us for our next Veeam Federal meetup on Wednesday, April 15th at 3:30PM EDT.
To find out where your agency stands today, take the Veeam Data Resilience Maturity Model Quick Pulse. In just minutes, you will gain a high-level overview of your agency’s maturity horizon and a roadmap to strengthen your data resilience strategy — no matter where you begin. As a next step, Contact Merlin Cyber for more information on how the DRMM framework can be optimized for your agency’s unique mission and technology requirements.