12 Oct 11. Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded a follow-on contract from the U.S. Navy for the deployment, enhancement, operation and maintenance services in support of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service Law Enforcement Information Exchange System (LInX). LInX breaks down jurisdictional and technical barriers to improve data sharing across municipal, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract is valued at more than $32m to Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector over one base year and three option years, should all options be exercised, beginning in October. Northrop Grumman was awarded the first LInX contract in 2004 to develop the law enforcement information sharing system for police officers and criminal investigators in the states of Washington and Virginia and then a follow-on contract in 2007. LInX has since expanded to more than 800 law enforcement partner agencies in eleven regional locations around the United States.
19 Oct 11. Gloucestershire-based defence manufacturer L-3 TRL Technology will be showcasing the new exportable variant of its top secret crypto, Mini-CATAPAN®, at Milipol Paris, which runs 18–21 October 2011 at Paris Porte de Versailles. Already a market leader in the UK, Mini-CATAPAN is a pocket-sized device that protects sensitive information at the highest level and has been widely deployed across a number of government, security and law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The popularity of the device stems from its compact, lightweight design and high-speed capability, as well as its reprogrammable architecture, which enables the device to be reconfigured for overseas customers.
“The success of Mini-CATAPAN has not only enabled us to establish a leading position in the UK, but has also opened up new growth opportunities for L-3 TRL in overseas markets,” said Adrian Cunningham, L-3 TRL vice president and head of its National Security Division. “We have created a strong platform on which to expand our capabilities, and we are continually developing new high-assurance solutions and services to meet the demands of our growing UK and international customer base.”
Mini-CATAPAN will be on display at the L-3 TRL stand, 3F 062, at Milipol Paris 2011. The L-3 TRL team will be on hand to discuss the exportable variant, which will be available to approved coalition partners, subject to UK export legislation.
20 Oct 11. Following an evaluation carried out by SECAN (Security and Evaluation Agency: the NATO agency for the security and evaluation of communication and information systems), the North Atlantic Military Committee has awarded Secret-level certification to ECHINOPS, the encryption solution from Thales for the security of high-speed IP networks. The acquisition of this certification enables the French armed forces to meet their commitments to their allies within integrated NATO command, while guaranteeing high levels of control of the systems and of the sensitive information exchanged. Faced with the rise in cyber-attacks against governmental and military infrastructures around the world, Thales has developed ECHINOPS, a state-of-the-art cryptographic system, in conjunction with the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) and the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI). The system, which meets the most stringent requirements in terms of data security over IP networks, guarantees an extremely high level of protection for the classified information of the French armed forces.
Its characteristics, in terms of security, data transmission speed and latency times, make it a system that combines high performance with one of the highest security levels available on the market.
20 Oct 11. The “Duqu” malware that showed up in Europe recently caused quite a stir in the cybersecurity world because of its similarity to the infamous Stuxnet worm and its similar focus on industrial sys