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May 03, 2013

Dept of Defense Approves Samsung and BlackBerry Devices

A couple of months ago, on March 21, we reported that according to Electronista, the Macintosh News Network, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) was dropping BlackBerry in favor of about 650,000 Apple products.

After being in contact with a spokesman for the Defense Department, I was informed that the information from Electronista was about as incorrect as could be.  The next day, I wrote a follow-up story with the correct information as given to me by the DoD spokesman.

Today we have additional news. This was given to me directly from the same spokesman, Lt. Col. Damien Pickart. I mentioned that testing concerning which devices the U.S. government would use was still in progress. The one decision that they made was to not rely on just one company to supply all of their devices.

The DoD has adopted a strategy that using the best device for certain situations is better than just using the same device for everything. The DoD goes through a rigorous testing processing to ensure that the devices meet or exceed all testing parameters.

A Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) is one of the resources used. The STIG is a methodology for standardized secure installation and maintenance of computer software and hardware. The term was coined by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The implementation guidelines include recommended administrative processes and span the devices' lifecycles.

The DISA is a DoD combat support agency composed of military, federal civilians and contractors. DISA provides information technology (IT) and communications support to the president, vice president, secretary of defense, the military services, the combatant commands and any individual or system contributing to the defense of the United States. The DISA also creates configuration documents in support of the DoD.

On May 2, 2013, the DoD approved the STIG for BlackBerry 10. This approval is for both BlackBerry’s smartphones and PlayBook tablets running Enterprise Service 10. In addition to BlackBerry, Samsung devices running Android Knox are also being tested. According to Pickart, “This is a significant step towards establishing a multi-vendor environment that supports a variety of state-of-the-art devices and operating systems.”

This does not mean that the DoD is writing up any purchase orders. “A STIG approval establishes a configuration that allows a secure connection to DoD networks, which facilitates the process by eliminating the need for security reviews at the individual DoD organization level. However, today's decision does not result in product orders.” This is how the DoD spokesman describes the process.

Currently, several mobile devices and OSs are going through the DoD’s STIG review and approval process. In maintaining their multi-device environment, the level of security necessary department-wide does not rest solely on any one mobile device. The network and software must also be secured and managed appropriately. An integral part of the secure mobility framework will be the Mobility Device Management and Mobile Application Store (MDM-MAS), which is in source selection now and anticipated for award in early summer.

The DoD spokesman added, “We are pleased to add Blackberry 10 and the Samsung Knox version of Android to our family of mobile devices supporting the Department of Defense. We look forward to additional vendors also participating in this process, further enabling a diversity of mobile devices for use within the department.”




Edited by Alisen Downey


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