IA robust identity authentication and security management
IA robust identity authentication and security management
Realizing the Department of Defense's vision for the GlobalInformation Grid (GIG), information assurance (IA) requirements
include robust identity, authentication and privilege management,
policy for dynamic access control, security management, and
"persistence monitoring" or continual monitoring throughout the
network, according to Daniel G. Wolf, the director of information
assurance for the National Security Agency (NSA).
Protecting information across the entire GIG is a top priority of NSA,
which recently revised its IA roadmap for the GIG and continues to
update it as technology advances. In doing so, NSA is working with the
military services and DoD agencies to form alliances and validate the
GIG IA program requirements, budget requirements and implementation
strategy based on the architecture that NSA has proposed.
To be sure, implementing the roadmap is a long-term project: the
architectural plan for data sharing on the GIG is to be carried out
over the next 15 to 20 years.
The roadmap leverages the five tenets of IA: availability, integrity,
authentication, confidentiality and non-repudiation.
Essential components of the IA roadmap include:
Maintaining availability in an end-to-end encrypted "black core"
environment that is "unforgeable" and "unspoofable."
Identity management, specifying people, objects (data and
applications) and machines.
Privilege management, laying out the rights and privileges of users.
Dynamic access enforcement.
Mediated access between and among people, objects and machines based
on identities and privileges.
Assured information sharing.
Underlying security management infrastructure.
