From: InfoSec News (alertsinfosecnews.org)
Date: Thu Aug 30 2007 - 01:26:50 CDT

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http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/44959-1.html

By Rutrell Yasin
GCN
08/29/07

The National Security Agency has hired VMware and General Dynamics C4
Systems to develop high-assurance platform (HAP) workstations for the
agency.

Using VMware virtualization software, users in the Defense Department,
the intelligence community and other government agencies can access
information requiring different security clearance levels from a single
physical machine, said Aileen Black, vice president of federal sales at
VMware.

Currently, members of the armed forces and intelligence analysts with
multiple security clearances must use multiple, separate physical
workstations to access information according to clearance level, Black
said. This creates an expensive and logistically cumbersome information
technology environment, she added.

Through the joint HAP projects, government agencies would be able to
purchase secure workstation solutions developed by General Dynamics C4
Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, with integrated VMware
software that provides secure access to multiple clearance levels.

The HAP workstations could also reduce the size, weight and power
requirements for mobile field equipment used by tactical armed forces
units, allowing them to share secured information across communities of
interest, VMware officials said.

The Special Operations Command is partnering with NSA to adopt an early
release of the HAP workstation for operational testing.

“The HAP program is interested in developing the next generation of
standards and technologies that will be the foundation of secure
platforms that allow access to different classified domains and the
ability to securely share data between different classified enclaves,”
Prescott Winter, former director of the NSA Commercial Solutions Center
and now the agency’s chief technology officer, said in a statement.

VMware’s partnership with NSA builds on a joint development initiative
that dates to 2000. The project resulted in a solution called NetTop, a
predecessor to the HAP workstation based on VMware workstation software
that allows simultaneous access to top-secret and secret information on
the same platform

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