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GCN Home > 01/11/08 web stories

Secure E-mail standard released

By William Jackson

An international government-industry group has published specifications for a Secure E-mail standard that is intended to let governments communicate securely with each other and with their private-sector suppliers.

The specs developed by the Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program are built on a trusted public-key infrastructure model, similar to the U.S. government’s Federal PKI Bridge, but also include a policies and procedures for vetting and managing identity and access controls within an organization. This would assure users not only that an e-mail message is securely encrypted, but that the senders and receivers are who they say they are and are entitled to access the contents.

TCSP was formed in 2002 by the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MOD); its members now include the U.S. Defense Department, the Dutch government and a handful of major international defense contractors, including BAE Systems, Boeing, EADS, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Rolls-Royce. Both the DOD and MOD plan to implement Secure E-mail, said TSCP Director Wayne Grundy, who also works for BAE.

“When you think about this in principle, it sounds straightforward,” Grundy said. “When you try to implement it, it becomes tremendously complicated. That is why nobody has done it before” on a wide scale. “It is done on a case-by-case basis.”

The goal of the standard is to extend trusted relationships throughout the government supply chain, which can include thousands of suppliers as well as government entities and their prime contractors.

Paul Grant, deputy information sharing executive for the DOD chief information officer, said the standard would turn e-mail “from one of the most extensively used but least-trusted collaboration capabilities to one that can be trusted with sensitive information. This will serve as a foundation for sharing Controlled Unclassified Information with our mission partners, which certainly includes our suppliers.”

The U.S. Controlled Unclassified designation includes “For Official Use Only” and “Sensitive but Unclassified Information.” Across the pond, the standard will be used with information designated “U.K. Restricted.”

The specifications were completed late last year. MOD has announced its intention to make Secure E-Mail standard on desktops across its enterprise this year. DOD completed testing of the specs last fall and is planning to pilot the standard this year in a large program involving most TSCP member companies, Grundy said. Details of the pilot are expected to be released soon.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, IT Security, State & Local, Workflow / Collaboration



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