Middle East Navy: Information Exchange Gateway

This Middle Eastern Navy decided to implement an Information Exchange Gateway (IEG), choosing Deep Secure’s Policy Enforcement and Threat Removal products to secure the link between its enterprise and tactical networks.

Business Challenge

Securely Linking Enterprise and Tactical Units

The Navy wished to secure the link interconnecting its enterprise network and tactical units to enable the secure exchange of information between several onshore sites and mobile units, HQ, the army and air force.

The Navy decided to implement this capability using the best practice detailed in NATO’s Information Exchange Gateway (IEG) specifications. Initially, one IEG had to be designed to enable exchange between the primary onshore site and the mobile units and allied forces with a second IEG securing the link between the onshore site and the enterprise network.

The Navy was keen to leverage existing systems where possible and to integrate into the existing enterprise IP network. They needed support for high availability / redundancy for 24x7x365 operation and full automatic recovery of operation following failure. The design of the IEG needed to maximise use of COTS and NATO compliant standards / architectures / technologies and be modular and scalable to allow for future information exchange services and swap out of individual components.

To deliver, it was essential that the project team chose the right partner to help them design, specify, build and deploy.

Solution

Information Exchange Gateway (IEG)

An IEG comprises a number of components. The Navy selected Deep Secure to help them design and build the Information Exchange Services (IES) and Information Protection Services (IPS) elements of the IEG. These covered the information exchange and protection of Web Browsing / Web Services (HTTPS), email (SMTP), Military Message Handling Systems (MMHS, X.400), chat (XMPP), directory replication (X.500/LDAP) and structured messaging carried over ship-to-shore applications.

Across this range of communications channels, Deep Secure products provided deep content inspection, scanning for known hazards such as executables and hidden data as well as providing protocol proxying, file format checking, digital signatures, encryption, security labelling, text checking, Anti-Virus scanning, data type filtering and logging functionality.

Deep Secure Threat Removal technology was also used to ensure cross-domain network management and chat protocols was 100% threat-free using Deep Secure’s unique transformation technology.

Results

Secure Cross Domain Communication

Deep Secure’s cross-domain solutions enable secure, threat-free communication between enterprise and tactical units. The solution is deployed in one Security Operations Centre (SOC) with plans to extend deployment to a second and third SOC in the months ahead.

"We chose Deep Secure for a number of reasons. They were able to provide us with a highly experienced design and implementation team able to support the requirement for through life support for the system.”

“Specialist subject matter expertise, skills, knowledge and understanding derived from a large range of previous projects significantly reduced the risks associated with the securing of systems using standard product.”

Back