Fairfax County's Security Strategy Transformation with Zscaler Workload Segmentation

Fairfax County, located in Northern Virginia, is the most populous county in the Commonwealth of Virginia with over 1.1 million citizens and more than 12,000 government employees. The county oversees a wide range of services including elections, tax collection, public education, social services, law enforcement, fire and rescue, transportation, and parks and recreation. With the rise in cyberattacks, especially those targeting the government sector, Fairfax County recognized the need to reimagine its security strategy. The county had hundreds of applications in the data center and in Azure that needed to be protected. The county wanted to reduce its network attack surface and decrease the risk of breaches by protecting east-west traffic inside the data center. The next generation firewalls (NGFWs) it was using to protect its data were becoming suboptimal, with hundreds of applications resulting in thousands of policies and creating unnecessary complexity. With a small, centralized IT team, Fairfax County needed to minimize complexity with a zero trust solution that was easy and seamless to deploy, monitor, and manage.

Fairfax County is located in Northern Virginia and employs more than 12,000 government employees. Founded in 1742, Fairfax County is the most populous county in the Commonwealth of Virginia with more than 1.1 million citizens—approximately 13 percent of Virginia’s population. The county is responsible for overseeing a wide range of services including elections, tax collection, public education, social services, law enforcement, fire and rescue, transportation, and parks and recreation. With a mission to “protect and enrich our quality of life for people, neighborhoods, and diverse communities,” Fairfax County is committed to ensuring the security and safety of its data and systems.