Multiple Secure Level Simulation Federation Technology

To date, a brute-force approach has been taken on handling security within HLA. In particular, a federation typical operates in a "system high" security mode. This approach can be costly and might require security upgrades to some federates, and/or limiting participation by individuals who are not cleared to higher levels. A preferred approach is to enhance the HLA, and supporting infrastructure, so that it can allow operation in a multi-level secure (MLS) mode. The fundamental missing capability is an RTI capable of enforcing mandatory access controls over labeled objects and attributes. This effort will develop such an enhanced MLS RTI and develop a tool for adding security level information to the FED files that define federations within the HLA architecture MÄK, the leading supplier of a COTS RTI, will leverage their products and expertise to create an MLS RTI and a tool for establishing the security levels and compartments of federation data, to the granularity of individual object attributes. MÄK will take advantage of current COTS efforts to handle the protection of labeled data - by building the MLS RTI on top of a "trusted computing base" capable of enforcing mandatory access controls, and CCEVS validated network security devices.