Multiple Independent Levels of Security/Safety Tools and Processes

The Multiple Independent Layers of Security/Safety (MILS) architecture brings the promise of high assurance to embedded systems in numerous DoD communications, intelligence, and avionics platforms. Unfortunately, its widespread adoption for managing single and multi-level classified data has been limited by the various DoD Certification and Accreditation (C&A) processes it must undergo. While MILS has specifically been designed to be highly reusable and automated from the start, DoD C&A evaluations are still performed manually. The result is many months and potentially millions of dollars for even a simple system accreditation. To address this problem, MAXIM Systems and teammates OIS and Ball Aerospace will research the requirements for an automated DoD C&A tool to address the MILS architecture, targeting the B-2 EHF SATCOM program. The MAXIM team will then research methods to generalize this tool for other MILS application platforms as well as non-MILS environments. The team will also define requirements for use of the technology as a Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tool for third party developers to ensure C&A compliance and MILS best practices are built into future software from the start. MAXIM will produce a complete development plan and proof of concept demonstration as part of this research.