Putting tablets to the test

Putting tablets to the test

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12273889_sWith the widespread proliferation of the Apple iPad and other tablets in the commercial world, it was only a matter of time before the Defense Department leveraged the size, flexibility and power of the tablet form factor for mobile military computing. As part of a mobility pilot program led by the Defense Information Systems Agency, the services are evaluating about 2,500 tablet computers across DoD to test the wireless hardware platforms and their ability to operate at the “for official use only” security level.

According to Defense News the goal of the pilot is to ensure that these tablets can operate securely regardless of the environment. The envisioned end state is enterprise-level secure classified and protected unclassified mobile solutions that support the war fighter globally.

DISA signed on to lead the mobility pilot, which was to look at using tablets in an ‘official use only,’ ‘sensitive’ and ultimately the ‘classified’ environment, since they were the ones responsible for verifying and validating that the operating systems were secure,” said Mike McCarthy, director of operations for the Brigade Modernization Command-Mission Command Complex at Fort Bliss, Texas.

The Brigade Modernization Command has incorporated the tablets into Network Integration Evaluations being conducted semiannually at Fort Bliss. During the most recent NIE, about 150 mobile devices were used by the opposing forces.

Soldiers are telling us that they like the mobile devices. Particularly in the field, they like the smaller 7-inch tablets,” said McCarthy, project lead for the Army’s Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications (CSDA) project, an effort to bring smartphone/hand-held devices to soldiers across the service through security initiatives being worked to create a safe and secure operating environment for all mobile device users.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

He is personally using an Android-based Samsung tablet and an iOS-based iPad that are being evaluated as part of the DISA pilot. Apple’s iPad Mini is also being run through its paces.

We started the mobility pilot last October with about 200 tablets, a combination of iPads and Samsung Galaxy Android tablets, trying some different approaches for securing them,” McCarthy said. “That was expanded this year. Just in the Army alone, we’ve added 1,500 additional devices as part of the pilot.”

The original plan was to issue up to 5,000 tablets this fiscal year as part of the pilot, but with sequestration and budget constraints, the rollout had to be scaled back to 2,500 devices, of which approximately 1,700 tablets belong to the Army’s CSDA project. The military services are partners with DISA on the unclassified portion of the pilot, while the National Security Agency is a partner on the classified side.

It really gave us some great insights on things that worked and things that we need to continue to look at,” McCarthy said. “As we move forward, we’ve got Windows 8 tablets. There are five Hewlett-Packard tablets that are not in production yet that are currently with DISA and the NSA to have their operating systems checked to make sure there are no vulnerabilities that can’t be mitigated with some kind of measure.”

However, Google’s Android mobile operating system is of particular interest. Of the operating systems available on tablets, Android is the furthest along in terms of security. According to McCarthy, Android was certified 14 months before Apple’s iOS. Common Access Card readers on all of the devices are required to access secure information such as encrypted email.

The iPad is locked down probably a little bit more than the Android, and that’s only because we haven’t had as much experience dealing with the Apple iOS environment,” he said. “So, we took some extra precautions. As we get more comfortable, I think we’ll see a loosening of some of the Security Technical Implementation Guides that are on there so we can take full advantage of the iPad.”