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Multi-Level Security Strategies for the Federal Government
Harnessing MLS Compliance Requirements to Improve Agency Operations

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 “To better access and integrate data, we’re talking about Web-based systems and XML-based interactions among systems.  This is very much driven by the commercial market, but there is a strong desire now to employ these technologies with respect to the sharing and exchange of data among various security levels.  So, one thing that’s quite obvious is that the old way of doing things, with fixed formats and very rigorously controlled guards and stovepiped systems, is unsatisfactory.  The desire across the board within government, including state and local government, is to make sure that any new system does the sharing with these contemporary technologies.” 
 
--Eric Beyer,
Lockheed Martin

 
Sponsored by: IBM
Report Abstract:
This Larstan Business Report explores the impact new secure information sharing requirements are having on agencies with defense, intelligence and homeland security missions.  It reports on how one company, IBM, is providing platforms for managing these new requirements.

The need to share information among different governmental agencies has risen dramatically due to the war to combat terrorism.  Increased emphases on information-sharing among agencies tasked with protecting U.S. national interests at home and abroad have placed greater responsibilities for handling national security information on local and federal agencies that, in the past, have been outside the normal channels of classified information processing. 

The traditional approach to enforcing multiple security levels (MSL) has been for each federal agency to operate a separate computing infrastructure for each level of security authorization in force at that agency.  A discrete network with one set of servers and storage devices is deployed for top secret data; another is maintained for secret data and yet another for unclassified data (in some cases, all classifications of data are replicated on the servers with the highest security ratings).

This traditional approach, however, is inconsistent with the new mandates to share information to respond to – or prevent – threats to U.S. interests.  As a result a better architecture for inter-agency data sharing is being implemented by government agencies: multi-level security or MLS.

 MLS has two primary goals. 

  • First, establish controls that prevent users from accessing information at a higher classification than their authorization permits; and
  • Second, ensure that the controls prevent unauthorized users from declassifying information.

Effectively implemented, MLS systems ensure that data can be consolidated onto a single infrastructure, while maintaining the highest levels of assurance that it can only be accessed by authorized users.