Apriva announced that its Apriva ISS division has been awarded a contract modification by the United States Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to enhance its Multi Carrier Entry Point (MCEP) Gateway. This gateway enhancement will enable the Department of Defense (DoD) to deliver classified voice and data communications to commercially available smartphones. The upgraded gateways are part of the DoD’s mobility gateway plan and will take on a central role in providing world-wide secure communications for wireless devices in the DoD’s Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) Mobility Gateway initiative.
“We are extremely excited and proud to be part of the solution that provides the DoD with the capability of having secure voice and data communications on commercially available devices” said Chris Spinella, chief executive officer of Apriva, in a prepared statement. “While expensive government-purpose-built communication devices that require years to develop and deploy are becoming a thing of the past, the government’s need for secure communications has never been greater. We clearly support the concept of combining commercial technology with strong security as a viable, cost-effective solution for serving the budgetary and operational needs of the government.”
DISA, a Combat Support Agency, provides, operates and assures joint command and control, information sharing capabilities and a globally accessible enterprise information infrastructure in direct support of joint war fighters, National-level leaders, and other mission and coalition partners across the full spectrum of operations. To foster cost savings and faster deployment of commercial technology for voice communications, DISA has adopted the National Security Agency’s (NSA) initiative for Mobility Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC). This program focuses on using commercial off-the-shelf technology, such as Android devices, coupled with best-of-breed encryption and mobile security software, to enable a secure voice solution that can keep up with technology and still be affordable.
According to Apriva, the CSfC Mobility Gateway will provide DISA full command and control and the required mechanisms to ensure that secure gateway communications are available for war fighters and national leadership. Additionally, as part of its agreement with DISA, Apriva will provide professional services support for the DoD CSfC Mobility Gateway for approved CSfC devices.
As Spinella explains, Apriva has a long and successful history in developing and implementing secure state-of-the-art gateway technology.
“Apriva has many years of experience in providing secure mobile solutions to business and government customers,” he said. “Our Point-of-Sale division developed and launched a secure gateway dedicated to mobile payment processing in 1999, and our ISS division broke ground with DISA in 2007 by establishing the DISA MCEP Gateway for the first generation of secret mobile devices for data services, including email, known as SME PED. This is technology in which we are extremely well-versed.”
