While the rest of the world may be able to work from home, cleared employees have struggled to find the right solution to make remote work a reality. But Network Designs, Inc. (NDi) has supported the U.S. Army in achieving a Type Authorization to Operate (ATO) from U.S. Army Network Enterprise Command (NETCOM) for its Classified Remote Access Service (SCRAS). This new U.S. Army capability, called ViSR (Virtual Secure Remote), achieved the ATO and accompanying certification from the National Security Agency (NSA). The Type ATO allows reuse of the solution design and documentation expediting instantiations of additional solutions as quickly as 90 days.
The nation security workforce just got one step closer to achieving their work-from-home dreams.
SCRAS™ is an enterprise-class solution that provides Department of Defense (DoD) personnel the ability to access classified networks from remote locations over the commercial internet and over unclassified networks on the DOD information network (DODIN). The DoD has adopted NSA’s Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) program and U.S. ARMY NETCOM contracted NDi (a CSfC Certified Integrator) to design, build, integrate, and maintain the solution (called ViSR) as a managed service.
“This requirement – and the resulting solution – has influenced SIPR modernization across all Army,” said Marcus Meyer, VP of Enterprise Solutions at NDI. “Legacy SIPR was constrained to on-post access by a terminal in a specific location. Significant savings will be realized by the flexibility this solution provides, whether on DODIN or off, via Remote Access.”
NDi and its strategic partner, ID Technologies, a CACI Company, have designed this service to enable secure remote access over the public internet to Unclassified, Secret, and Top-Secret networks. The modular and scalable solution provides a robust transport architecture that enables the Warfighters’ End-User Device (EUD), aka “laptop,” via wireless, cellular, or wired connections to traverse the commercial internet and communicate securely with classified enclaves. Each component is highly available and boasts high performing compute nodes, load-balanced with fault tolerance, ensuring a high performing experience as the solution accommodates up to 15,000 users.
“We are excited to instantiate and support this needed capability to the U.S. Army,” said NDi’s President and CEO, Anthony Zeruto. “We see this Type Authorization and ATO as a first step to SCRAS/ViSR becoming the standard in the DoD. Secure access by our forces to classified enclaves from anywhere is a necessity in today’s complex world.”
Contract Opportunities to Watch
Booz Allen
Booz Allen was awarded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Cybersecurity and Privacy Enterprise Solutions and Services (CyPrESS) contract—a hybrid indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) single award contract with a total potential value of $622.5 million—to provide a complete range of cybersecurity and privacy enterprise solutions and services for NASA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). For the first time, this contract brings together all aspects of cybersecurity across the NASA enterprise under one contract to include IT systems, operational technology systems, and mission systems. Work will support all NASA centers and facilities from May 31, 2022 through September 30, 2023, with four option periods running through September 2030.
As NASA seeks to centralize cybersecurity across the agency, Booz Allen will support key task areas including development and implementation of NASA’s cybersecurity standards, architecture, and engineering, as well as delivery, oversight, and program management of cybersecurity and privacy services.
“We’re honored that NASA has awarded Booz Allen with the groundbreaking CyPrESS IDIQ contract, which seeks—for the first time—to centralize NASA’s cybersecurity posture under one strategic line of work,” said Andrea Inserra, executive vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton. “We recognize that NASA’s current cyber needs must advance and evolve to protect its more complex missions of the future, and we look forward to building on our long-standing partnership to support NASA’s important research, missions, and operations—paving the way to send humans beyond the Moon to Mars—while protecting its people, assets, and information from threats.”
As the largest provider of cybersecurity solutions and services in North America, the prime digital integrator for the Department of Defense, and trusted partner for national, defense, and civil space efforts for more than 50 years, Booz Allen is well positioned to meet this mission. With this contract, Booz Allen builds upon its deep partnership with NASA—dating back to the agency’s creation in 1958 and assisting with the theoretical trajectory that put the first man on the Moon—by providing these services to all NASA centers and facilities.
“This single-award CyPrESS contract will enable NASA to establish an enterprise-wide approach to cybersecurity and provide a deeper focus on its operational technology and mission systems along with its IT systems,” said Eric Hoffman, vice president at Booz Allen. “Booz Allen is excited to support NASA’s enterprise-centric transformation by providing cyber defense, vulnerability discovery, and incident response services to mitigate risks, as well as cybersecurity engineering and automation solutions to enhance timely, risk-based decisions.”
Key Employer in the Cleared Industry: KBR
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Cleared Opportunities
When it comes to finding jobs, it’s helpful to follow the money trails. Whether that’s from a contract win or investments, both signal growth and opportunity ahead.Recently, Shield AI, a fast-growing defense technology company building AI pilots for aircraft announced it has raised $90 million in equity and $75 million in debt as part of a Series E fundraising round, increasing the Company’s valuation to $2.3 billion. With this deal, Shield AI joins SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril as the only multi-billion-dollar defense-tech startups of the past 20 years.
“The future of defense aviation is autonomy. AI pilots are the most disruptive defense technology of our generation – and Shield AI is committed to putting the world’s best AI pilots in the hands of the United States and our allies. No company has assembled more, or recruits better AI engineering talent for, aviation autonomy and intelligent swarming than Shield AI,” said Shield AI’s co-founder and CEO, Ryan Tseng.
Shield AI’s Hivemind software is an AI pilot for military and commercial aircraft that enables intelligent teams of aircraft to perform missions ranging from room clearance, to penetrating air defense systems, and dogfighting F-16s. Hivemind employs state-of-the-art algorithms for planning, mapping, and state-estimation to enable aircraft to execute dynamic flight maneuvers and uses reinforcement learning for discovery, learning, and execution of winning tactics and strategies. On aircraft, Hivemind enables full autonomy and is designed to run fully on the edge, disconnected from the cloud, in high threat, GPS and communication-degraded environments.
Shield AI’s hardware products are its small-unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) Nova, and its medium-size vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAS, V-BAT. Hivemind is integrated onboard Nova and has been deployed in combat since 2018; it will soon be integrated onboard the V-BAT to further enhance its class-leading capabilities.
“Russia and China are jamming GPS and communications. U.S. and allied forces need swarms of resilient systems flown by AI pilots to operate in these denied environments. We call it low-cost, distributed strategic deterrence. If we had put up a bunch of AI-piloted swarms on the border of Ukraine, the Russians may have thought twice about invading. Distributed swarms are also more survivable than traditional strategic assets like an aircraft carrier (which is a high-cost, centralized strategic deterrent). Every ally is modernizing their military, and they’re looking at how AI-piloted aircraft can give them a strategic, tactical, and cost advantage,” said Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s co-founder, President, and a former Navy SEAL.
