How the U.S. military is protecting its assets against cyberattacks from mobile devices
NewsMay 09, 2024
Flavia Camargos Pereira
Military Embedded Systems
SOF WEEK 2024 -- TAMPA, Fla. To ensure the protection of sensitive information while still enabling users to access government systems through their personal mobile devices, the U.S. military has been using such security techniques as zero-trust architectures, isolation, and virtualization.
In order to avoid the exploitation and theft of data, some of the services under the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) operate the Hypori Halo commercial solution for classified platforms. Supplied by the software company Hypori, it is designed to reduce the threat and spread of cyberattacks by eliminating data at rest and data in transit on mobile devices. It works on iOS, Android, and Windows 10 systems.
During the SOF Week 2024 exhibition, in Tampa, Florida, Jared Shepard, the founder and CEO of Hypori, explained that Halo enables servicemembers and civilians who work with the government to access unclassified networks without either losing the data or having the privacy of their individual devices violated.
“They [users] really do want the flexibility to be able to do work from anywhere that they are. So, we enable that through a virtual machine operating system that exists in the cloud,” Shepard maintained.
The solution is built around all zero-trust security principles, ensuring that the data does not leave the protected environment: "So, if the edge device is compromised, the data is not at risk. If the edge device is lost, the data is not at risk because there is no data physically present,” Shepard pointed out.
The technology behind the Hypori Halo was born out of the need to conduct special operation missions and communicate even in compromised countries. It is currently in use with the U.S. Army, National Guard, and Reserve, giving users access to the Army 365 Email, Teams, MyPay, IPPS-A, CAC-enabled websites, and NIPRNet. During the summer of 2024, it is expected to enter service with the U.S. Air Force and Space Force and allow for the use of NIPRNet.
Hypori Halo is also in operation with other government services, as well as with other countries. “We are all kind of trying to fight against the same problem,” Shepard noted. "So, any place that data is regulated and has to be protected, we tend to do very well there.”
To keep pace with customers’ requirements, the company has been also working on improving the solution by adding new features. "We have already done a lot of really good updates performance-wise, but we are actually going to release our voice and text platform at the end of this year,” Shepard revealed.
As he explained, the voice and text systems will also work inside the virtual machine without residing on the edge device, thereby increasing the security of the data.
