Democratizing access to Zero Trust with Project Galileo

Project Galileo was started in 2014 to protect free expression from cyber attacks. Many of the organizations in the world that champion new ideas are underfunded and lack the resources to properly secure themselves. This means they are exposed to Internet attacks aimed at thwarting and suppressing legitimate free speech.

In the last eight years, we have worked with 50 partners across civil society to onboard more than 2,000 organizations in 111 countries to provide our powerful cyber security products to those who work in sensitive yet critical areas of human rights and democracy building.

As Cloudflare has grown as a company, we have adapted and evolved Project Galileo especially amid global events such as COVID-19, social justice movements after the death of George Floyd, the war in Ukraine, and emerging threats to these groups intended to silence them. Early in the pandemic, as organizations had to quickly implement work-from-home solutions, new risks stemmed from this shift.

In our conversations with partners and participants, we noticed a theme. The digital divide in terms of cyber security products on the market and the “one size fits all” model mean that only large enterprises with a dedicated security team and extensive budgets have the ability to keep their internal resources and data secure. For Project Galileo, we work with a range of organizations that vary in size, internal capacity, and technical expertise. Especially since many of these groups rely on their online presence to collect donations, organize volunteers, and promote their mission, one size fits all security products do not match the needs and expertise for these groups.

With this, we have extended our Zero Trust products to all domains under Project Galileo, as we want organizations to have access to Enterprise-level cyber security products no matter their size and budgets. Zero Trust security means that no one is trusted by default from inside or outside the network, and verification is required from everyone trying to gain access to resources on the network. This allows organizations of any size to solve the common security problems such as data loss, malware and phishing so these organizations can focus on their unique missions.

For Impact Week, we are excited to share how Project Galileo participants and partners use Cloudflare’s Zero Trust products to keep their operations running smoothly.

We started partnering with the CyberPeace Institute for Project Galileo in 2022. As part of our partnership, we have worked to provide our cyber security services to at-risk organizations around the world.

Established in 2019, the CyberPeace Institute is an independent and neutral nongovernmental organization, headquartered in Switzerland, whose mission is to ensure the rights of people to security, dignity and equity in cyberspace. The Institute works in close collaboration with relevant partners to reduce the harms from cyberattacks on people’s lives worldwide. By analyzing cyberattacks, the Institute exposes their societal impact, how international laws and norms are being violated, and advances responsible behavior to enforce cyberpeace.Since our partnership, we've been working to onboard their organization to Cloudflare Zero Trust, to secure critical applications and protect employees from online threats.

“The CyberPeace Institute works with humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to protect their operations and build their cyber capabilities, data and resources in an increasingly complex digital environment. Both the Institute and Cloudflare share a core motivation to ensure the rights of people to security, dignity and equity in cyberspace. This alignment gives us confidence that Cloudflare is the right strategic partner as we evolve with our mission. We are grateful for the support of Project Galileo” stated Stéphane Duguin, Chief Executive Officer, CyberPeace Institute.

The Information Technology Disaster Resource Center is a nonprofit composed of thousands of service oriented technical professionals and private sector partners that assist in disaster response operations in the United States. These teams train and work in collaboration with NGOs and first responders to deliver emergency communications and technical solutions to aid communities in crisis. ITDRC provides connectivity, Wi-Fi hotspots, cell phone charging stations, and Internet-enabled computers for shelters, fire camps, and community recovery. A key part of their mission is to leverage technology to connect survivors and responders amid crises.

ITDRC started using Cloudflare in 2020 when they were accepted to Project Galileo. Since then, they have implemented many Zero Trust products to secure their volunteers and employees.

Chris Hillis, Co-founder at ITDRC says, "Cloudflare Zero Trust is essential to securing our employees, volunteers, and disaster survivors on site and in the field. Cloudflare delivers secure, reliable, and fast connectivity to the Internet and critical applications that our teams need to respond to disasters effectively. Setting up policies has been simple for our administrators, and our team benefits from a safer, faster experience, whether accessing internally hosted applications, or the broader Internet. With Cloudflare Access, we are able to ensure that team members receive a consistent user experience accessing internal applications based on their role, all while utilizing our existing identity provider and securing our infrastructure. Utilizing Cloudflare Gateway adds an additional layer of security to our networks and devices, helping to protect our users from external threats, and themselves."

Meedan is a global technology not-for-profit that builds software and programmatic initiatives to strengthen journalism, digital literacy, and accessibility of information online and off. They develop open-source tools for creating and sharing context on digital media through crowdsourcing, annotation, verification, archival, and translation. Their projects span issues including election monitoring, pandemic response, and human rights documentation.

Aaron Huslage, Director of Systems and Security at Meedan says, “Meedan and Cloudflare both share a vision of a more equitable, safer Internet. We were proud to be a founding member of Project Galileo in 2014 and support the work that program has done to protect Human Rights Defenders around the world. Closer to home Cloudflare helps our employees be more secure and productive when creating and distributing our open source software.”

The Organization of American States is the world’s oldest regional organization, dating back to the First International Conference of American States, held in Washington, D.C., from October 1889 to April 1890. Its 35 members focus on four main pillars — democracy, human rights, security, and development. It serves as a home for multilateral dialogue on topics such as the rights of indigenous peoples, territorial disputes, and regional goals for education.

"The partnership with Cloudflare will help the Organization of American States (OAS) democratize best-in-class security to modernize and strengthen our internal cybersecurity posture with a Zero Trust approach, delivered in the cloud, without sacrificing our workforce performance." Andrew Vanjani, OAS Chief Information Officer.

First, we want to thank all of our civil society partners that we work alongside to offer Cloudflare protection and work with us to extend even more products to organizations around the world. If you are an organization looking for protection under Project Galileo, please visit our website: cloudflare.com/galileo.