Achieving NATO STANAG 4774 and 4778 Compliance

Ensuring NATO STANAG 4774 and 4778 Compliance for Secure Multinational Information Sharing

Efforts to facilitate critical information sharing between multinational coalition partners, including traditional and non-traditional allies, have become more critical in light of recent conflicts. In addition, partner nations need to share and work together on highly classified information at different security classifications and clearances, which poses a challenge to multinational collaboration efforts.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) includes 31 member countries and numerous partner organizations. Its mission is to enable member nations to consult and cooperate on defense and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and prevent conflict. 

What Is NATO’s STANAG Framework?

The NATO Standardization Agreement (STANAG) was created to build a common framework for security policies and confidentiality metadata to facilitate information sharing between member nations and industry partners.

A STANAG specifies the agreement of member countries to implement a standard. They provide a framework for interoperability, including common operational and administrative procedures and logistics, information systems (CIS), and formats to facilitate the sharing of intelligence and other information for NATO and Allied operations.

What are NATO STANAG 4774 and 4778?

STANAG 4774 outlines the metadata syntax required for a confidentiality label to better facilitate and protect sensitive information sharing. In addition, STANAG 4778 defines how a confidentiality label is bound to the data throughout its lifecycle and between the sharing parties. It also outlines cryptographic techniques to ensure the integrity of data and labels. 

Confidentiality label requirements include:

• Information Owner to clearly define ownership throughout the data’s life cycle
• Label creator, creation date and expiry data 
• Information Sharing on a ‘need-to-share’ versus ‘need-to-know’ security principle, especially for field deployed forces
• Information Standardization for interoperability, cooperation and efficient processes
• Information classification level and markings to indicate sensitivity
• Information Assurance provides a set of measures to provide a level of confidence in protection during information communication 
• Data Assurance to provide data integrity

Despite the clear framework, implementing the NATO STANAG 4774 and 4778 policies for classification is often complicated. 

What is the Zero Trust Data Format (ZTDF)?

Building on the foundational standards of STANAG 4774 and 4778, NATO has evolved toward a comprehensive Data-Centric Security (DCS) approach that prioritizes protecting the information itself instead of securing network perimeters. The Zero Trust Data Format (ZTDF) is the first interoperable data security wrapper that brings traditional STANAGs with modern zero trust principles. It was adopted in 2025 and ratified through NATO’s Combined Communications-Electronics Board.

ZTDF enables seamless data sharing among allied nations via the embedding of access controls and classification metadata directly into documents, which allows for automatic translation between different national classification systems while maintaining cryptographic integrity throughout the data lifecycle.

What are the Challenges to Implementing NATO STANAG 4774 and 4778 Compliance?

The standardization of the information classification requirements to meet NATO standards can be challenging to implement due to the disparate systems in use by member nations and nation-specific security classifications and clearance levels.

NATO member countries need to employ tools that can apply the required metadata and visual markings, as well as manage access to sensitive information, to comply with the STANAGs.  

For example, metadata must include multiple layers of information, including: 

• The date marking is applied.
• The identity of the countries that were part of that group at the time the document was created.
• Specific visual markings, depending on the data’s classification.

Additionally, NATO’s Digital Transformation Implementation Strategy now emphasizes data-centric architectures and zero trust capabilities, with active testing through multinational interoperability exercises to validate these evolving methods.

How Does archTIS Help with STANAG 4774 and 4778 Compliance?

Microsoft 365 (M365) and SharePoint Server provide a common platform for multinational coalition partners to share information. However, the fine-grained access controls based on nationality and location, multi-labeling and visual markings required can be challenging to achieve natively. This is where partner solutions come in to augment functionality and provide the necessary controls.

archTIS provides fine-grain attribute-based access control (ABAC) paired with dynamic labeling and visual marking capabilities for Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Server to help ensure STANAG 4774 and 4778 compliance, control access, and minimize risk. The NC Protect product augments Microsoft security applications by providing fine-grained attribute-based access control (ABAC) and data-centric protection, ensuring secure and compliant multinational collaboration and information sharing.

What Features Does NC Protect Offer for NATO STANAG Compliance?

NC Protect enhances M365 and SharePoint Server with the following fine-grained, dynamic controls to assist with achieving NATO STANAG 4774 and 4778 compliance:

Classification and Labeling Support

• Unlimited Labels — NC Protect supports unlimited classification labels to augment Microsoft Purview’s labeling limitations.
• Multi-label Support — Allows multiple labels and metadata to be applied to a single document to meet labeling STANAG requirements, including expiry dates.
• Classification — Apply classifications with NC Protect or leverage existing classifications from Microsoft Purview Information Protection, Janusseal Document, and other third-party classification tools in its dynamic ABAC policies.

Data-centric Protection & Visual Markings

• Visual Markings — Applies visual markings, including headers, footers, CUI Designation Indicator labels, and custom information to identify information sensitivity clearly.

• Disable Print/Copy/Download by forcing viewing of sensitive content in the Secure Reader.  
• Secure Dynamic Watermarks – Automatically applies secure watermarks that cannot be removed to identify the user handling sensitive information (e.g., name, date and time of access, IP address, etc.) to deter photographing and aid in forensics in case of data loss. 
• Policy Enforcement — Inspects documents for sensitive content and can block users from sending the file to an unauthorized recipient via SharePoint.

ABAC Access Controls

• Access Control — Segments access to data using dynamic attribute-based access control (ABAC) policies (e.g., security classification, clearance level, briefing level, department, nationality) and zero trust principles at the individual file level.
• Prevents unauthorized sharing across SharePoint and Exchange.
• Provides centralized policy management to create, modify, and enforce access and data protection policies.

Monitoring and Auditing

• Auditing — Logs all access to and actions taken with sensitive data, as well as policy changes for auditing and reporting.
• Seamless integration with SIEM tools – User activity logs can be monitored and analyzed in SIEM applications (Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel) to generate upstream actions and alerts.

Beyond NATO STANAG Compliance: Strengthening National and Department-Level Data Protection

STANAG compliance isn’t just about international operations — the same controls can reinforce domestic data protection and national standards. Applying STANAG-compliant labeling and access control policies across all sensitive data environments reduces both intentional and unintentional data leaks. Doing so will improve the integrity and control of your data infrastructure, preventing data loss caused by internal and/or partner collaboration.

With NC Protect, organizations can:

• Implement Zero Trust data access at the file level.
• Protect mission-critical information across all collaboration platforms.
• Ensure only authorized users view, interact with or share sensitive data.

Final Thoughts: Why STANAG Compliance Matters

NATO has created a robust interoperability framework for classification and access, which member countries and partner organizations must implement within their own systems. The challenge is implementing it consistently across varying national systems and platforms.

Employing technology to automatically apply and enforce classification, visual markings, and data-centric access ensures proper application of these controls, and only authorized parties access NATO information. 

NC Protect offers the tools to:

• Enforce access controls aligned with clearance levels and policy.
• Automatically apply visual markings
• Ensure sensitive data stays protected throughout its lifecycle.

NC Protect safeguards information with data-centric policy-based controls and ensures compliance with NATO’s framework to prevent sensitive mission-critical information from being compromised.