MELE Associates, Inc - Defense Dept - OSD - Overview

Overview:  The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has the responsibility to set policy, guidelines, and procedures for the Department of Defense (DOD). The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence, C3I (ASD/C3I), is assigned to serves as the Chief Information Officer for DOD, and is responsible for policy, guidelines, and procedures for DOD IT. One of the challenges facing OSD/DOD is the integration and operation of environmentally appropriate combinations of commercial off-the-shelf IT security tools and utilities, and to identify best practices and training requirements to establish and maintain a secure environment for IT resources. The challenge includes preventing unauthorized external/internal intrusions into servers and workstations; maintaining a cleared work force; accessing classified servers and workstations for maintenance; and protecting data based on a need-to-know basis.

MELE, as prime contractor, provides expertise to the Office of the Secretary of Defense in research and development for establishing and maintaining a secure environment for the C3I IT resources at DOD. Specific areas of expertise provided included intrusion prevention systems, thin-client configurations for classified networks, and secure IT environments. The approached is summarized below:

Secure IT Environment Investigation

• Identified and documented shortcomings in C3I IT environmental security.
• Developed and recommended specific steps to improve the security system.
• Performed a physical survey in the proposed rooms for cabling.
• Installed and labeled cabling for new JWICS and SCI-B drops.
• Furnished and installed several “24” locking wall mount cabinets.
• Developed technical analysis of domain messaging and enterprise services.
• Evaluated risks and benefits of scenario-based alternate electronic messaging implementations from multiple perspectives.

• Designed-assembled-documented-installed 4 LAN for each classification level.
• Developed and documented a server architecture to provide domain services.
• Provided secure email service on each LAN.
• Provided management devices and software for the LANs.
• Provided a metric-based performance/acceptance schedule.

• Researched the optimal configuration for terminals on a classified network.
• Deployed and tested selected desktop configuration against success criteria.
• Acquired and installed selected desktop configuration to test.
• Planned, acquired, and deployed the selected desktop configuration, tested for approximately 100 users.

Source URL: http://www.meleassociates.com/c/485/OSD-intrusion-prevention