The NSA Wants Its Own Smartphone

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.uberreview.com/2011/09/the-nsa-wants-its-own-smartphone.htm

By C.S. Magor
The UberReview
September 27, 2011

Troy Lange might work for one of the more secretive spy agencies in the 
United States, but he is happy to talk about his work. He is the NSA’s 
mobility mission manager and he has been tasked with creating a 
smartphone that is secure enough to allow government personnel who deal 
with highly sensitive information to take their work on the road.

The NSA takes the threat of compromised mobile devices (and compromised 
operatives) very seriously; NSA facilities have strict policies in place 
to govern the handling of information. The levels of restriction and 
supervision depend on the type of work that a facility performs – and 
are necessary if you don’t want a disgruntled operative uploading a 
bunch of stuff to Wikileaks.

The motivation for Lange’s project, which makes use of commercially 
available smartphones and operating system software that have been 
modified and a few custom built apps, is greater efficiency through 
better connectivity.

Lange highlighted the problem of connectivity within a Sensitive 
Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF): at present if he wants to 
send or receive an email, he must be at his desk and never on a laptop, 
even if the laptop is approved to hold information within an SCIF.

[...]

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