OIS Completes Security Evaluation for ORBexpress

Proquest LLC

Objective Interface Systems (OIS) reported that its ORBexpress product has successfully completed its security evaluation for use in the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter's Communications, Navigation and Identification (CNI) system, a complex avionics system that must be certified to comply with rigorous security requirements.

According to a media release, in support of Joint Strike Fighter program requirements, Lockheed Martin, the National Security Agency, InfoGard and OIS have successfully completed a security evaluation of the ORBexpress RT for C++ product. A variety of artifacts were generated during this process that are useful for certification and accreditation of U.S. Department of Defense systems that use the ORBexpress products. The results of the evaluation process satisfied the Joint Strike Fighter program requirements for compliance with the National Security Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Policy (NSTISSP) No. 11.

The CNI system, being developed by Northrop Grumman for the F- 35's prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, is a crucial component for the success of the F-35's advanced warfighting mission. OIS noted that the CNI system needs security to insure seamless and uninterrupted performance on the battlefield. The successful evaluation of ORBexpress saved the JSF program significant time and money by allowing the program to use COTS (Commercial Off-the- Shelf) communications middleware while still meeting the JSF's security objectives, instead of developing costly proprietary middleware.

OIS added that the Northrop Grumman CNI system uses software defined radios based on the Software Communications Architecture (SCA). Developed by the U.S. Department of Defense as part of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), the SCA uses the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) as the communications middleware framework. ORBexpress meets the requirements for JTRS radios transmitting classified data.

"During this stringent evaluation, a number of independent third parties reviewed and analyzed ORBexpress for different quality aspects," said Charles Rush, Vice President of OIS's Software Products Engineering. "This gives the developers of mission- critical systems even further confidence in using ORBexpress to develop their systems which require high robustness and reliability."

OIS provides technologies for constructing communications systems.