Redefining Risk: How CSRMC Signals a New Era of Cyber Resilience for the Department of War

Why Cybersecurity Leaders Must Think Beyond Compliance as the Deadline Approaches

The state of federal cybersecurity is changing rapidly. In November 2025, the U.S. Department of War, retired the long-standing Risk Management Framework (RMF) in favor of a new model: the Cybersecurity Risk Management Construct (CSRMC). This goes beyond just a procedural update. Rather, it demonstrates a foundational shift in how the War Department approaches risk, security readiness, and operational resilience.

The shift to CSRMC presents both a challenge and an opportunity for War Department leadership to advance their cybersecurity posture. CSRMC introduces a faster, more dynamic approach that replaces static compliance milestones with continuous risk evaluation and real-time monitoring. War Department agencies that embrace this shift will be better positioned to manage risk posed by an ever-evolving threat landscape.

Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short

For years, RMF provided the structure agencies needed to assess security risk and obtain an Authority to Operate (ATO). But in practice, it encouraged a surge-and-coast culture. Organizations would prepare for an assessment, pass, then fall back into routine operations, often without addressing underlying risk exposure or anticipating and mitigating nascent risk.

The traditional approach creates network blind spots and provides a false sense of security. Threat actors can exploit these blind spots to move laterally (East-West) undetected, target unpatched vulnerabilities, deliver zero-day attacks like Brickstorm, or infiltrate systems through the software supply chain—bypassing perimeter defenses entirely.

The Joint Staff’s Cyber Survivability Endorsement has already acknowledged this reality: RMF, while valuable, cannot stop a determined adversary. Simply put, compliance checklists may reduce liability and mitigate some risk, but they don’t provide security.

CSRMC: A Shift in Mindset, Not Just A Framework

CSRMC represents a new chapter in the War Department’s approach to cybersecurity in at least three tangible ways:

• Dynamic risk evaluation, not periodic testing—As the cyber domain changes daily, security posture is no longer static. CSRMC promotes ongoing analysis, zero trust architecture, and real-time insights to reduce the window between detection and response.
• Assumption of compromise—CSRMC operationalizes the idea that compromise is inevitable. Agencies must continuously monitor to identify breaches and respond promptly, not just validate identity at a point in time.
• From compliance to recovery—The objective is not just to pass an audit. It’s to maintain secure, mission-ready operations capable of withstanding attacks on an ongoing basis.

Visibility Into Network Traffic Intelligence Is Now Mission Critical

CSRMC’s success hinges on continuous, trusted, and evasion-resistant visibility, which is something traditional tools often fail to deliver. Many rely on system logs or agents that can be manipulated, disabled, or miss activity, such as lateral movement by an adversary, entirely.

These tools provide a version of reality shaped by the endpoint, server, workload, service, infrastructure device, IoT/OT device or embedded component or sub-component itself, which often tips off the adversary if their activity is detectable. That network intelligence visibility gap puts agency resilience at risk.

Gigamon takes a different approach: deep observability powered by network-derived telemetry. By monitoring network traffic itself—not what a compromised endpoint or device reports—Gigamon enables federal agencies to detect threats in real time, with confidence in the integrity of the data.

How Does Gigamon Support the CSRMC Transition

Gigamon delivers independent telemetry, generated directly from network traffic, that remains reliable, even when other tools are compromised.

This deep observability layer enables agencies to meet CSRMC requirements for continuous risk evaluation and secure Zero Trust enforcement. It ensures monitoring isn’t reliant on the systems being monitored, which is critical for high-assurance environments.

Capabilities Gigamon provides includes:

• Network-derived telemetry—Generates real-time intelligence directly from traffic flows, not logs or agents, enabling trusted insight into system behavior.
• Deep observability—Provides persistent, evasion- and deception-resistant telemetry to detect anomalous behavior as it happens, even in hybrid multi-cloud and multi-level/classified environments. Encryption is now ubiquitous and does not impede the ability to detect threats and anomalies. Post-quantum cryptography is supported.
• High-fidelity data—Reduces noise, increases signal confidence, and feeds analytics engines for faster, more accurate risk decisions.

Gigamon is widely deployed across the federal government, including classified environments. It serves as a trusted observability layer for defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure missions that demand constant awareness.

How to Prepare for CSRMC

Agencies preparing for the November 2025 CSRMC deadline can take immediate steps to align their strategy:

1. Map your current visibility.
   Where do you have insight today, and where are your network blind spots? Pay special attention to East-West traffic (traffic moving laterally within an environment, not just to and from an environment), encrypted flows, and cloud-native workloads.
2. Shift to continuous monitoring.
   Move beyond scheduled scans. Adopt tools that detect live anomalies and observe real-world behavior—not just configurations.
3. Validate your telemetry sources.
   Ensure that your observability isn’t dependent on the very systems you’re trying to protect. Independent, trustworthy data is non-negotiable. (To dive deeper into RFI, read “Gigamon Comments on the Extensible Visibility Reference Framework (eVRF) Program Guidebook.”)
4. Align with Zero Trust.
   NIST SP 800-207 requires network visibility (section 3.4.1 of Special Publication 800-207 “Zero Trust Architectures”), and Gigamon delivers it in hybrid multicloud environments.
5. Plan for Continuous ATO (cATO).
   Think beyond the checkbox. Build toward ongoing compliance and security with automation, analytics, and operational readiness baked into your workflows.

The Path Forward

The shift to CSRMC reflects a broader realization that cybersecurity must transition from a reactive to a proactive approach, from trusted borders to verified behavior, and from reliance on paperwork to a focus on resilience.

War Department components that act now will be positioned to lead this transition. With Gigamon, they’ll gain trusted, real-time visibility across systems and environments, enabling continuous monitoring and risk-based decisions. Agencies can transform compliance from a burden into a strategic advantage, enabling secure and mission-ready operations.

Ready to Lead Under CSRMC?

Discover how Gigamon helps agencies achieve continuous cyber resilience with trusted, real-time visibility, and how we can support your agency’s compliance and modernization efforts under CSRMC.

CONTINUE THE DISCUSSION

People are talking about this in the Gigamon Community’s Zero Trust group.

Share your thoughts today