The U.S. Army wants secure smart phones

The U.S. Army wants secure smart phones

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9263256_sInvincea Inc., an innovator in advanced malware threat detection, network breach prevention, and pre-breach forensic intelligence, announced the award of a multi-year, $21.4 million contract from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) for the development of secure smartphone and tablet mobile platforms for military use. Dubbed “Mobile Armour,” the project focuses specifically on driving security innovation within the Android operating system for government use. Invincea expects this development will be a forerunner of innovation to be brought to the commercial and consumer sectors as well.

Through its Invincea Labs subsidiary, the company has pioneered the development of a secure Android-based operating system for tactical mobile devices used by soldiers in forward-deployed operations in enemy terrain. Initial versions of the secure Android phone and tablets, meeting stringent military security specifications for “outside the wire” tactical use, are already being field tested by thousands of U.S. Army personnel in Afghanistan. Based on this early success, DARPA and the U.S. Army are expanding the scope of the Mobile Armour project to include significant new security enhancements to the Android platform through this award. Surging demand in the Federal Government for secure mobility is driving follow-on applications of the secure Android build for Invincea. The company is engaged with a number of federal civilian and defense agencies for the development and deployment of secure Android phones for both office and field applications.

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“As mobile devices become a new fertile ground for adversaries, chief information security officers (CISOs) are increasingly placing mobile security on their strategic roadmaps. At the same time, they need to continue addressing serious problems they face today – such as an increase in spear phishing of their employees. Security vendors like Invincea that innovate to address today’s problems and drive research into future requirements such as mobile are strongly positioned to be long-term partners to government and commercial organizations,” said Wendy Nather, Research Director of the Enterprise Security Practice at The 451 Group.

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