Communications security

Marines, NSA To Bring Smartphones To Rifle Squad

Historically, the military has faced two big barriers to acquiring civilian information technology: bureaucracy and security. Paperwork-heavy, multi-year procurements turn off civilian IT firms used to rolling out new product every few months. High security standards require painstaking certification of new technology — a process so prolonged that by the time the government says a product is safe to use, it often is dangerously obsolete.

NSA’s Commercial Solutions for Classified aims to shortcut the approval process, cutting it from years to months or weeks. Vendors get their products certified by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), a public-private partnership, and meet a number of other commercial and federal standards. Overall, CSfC is less rigid than the norm for government programs, according to a report by the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT). Once a technology jumps these hurdles, it goes on NSA’s approved list for use by the military.