CSD-mobile | Homeland Security

Mobile Device Security

Mobile technology has greatly changed where and how people get work done. Improving the government’s use of mobile technology is a cornerstone element in the 2012 Digital Government Strategy, led by the White House’s and the Federal Chief Informatio Illustration of layered mobile technology n Office’s (CIO) Council.

Increasing government productivity by leveraging more features available to mobile platforms would benefit all government agencies, and in response, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Cyber Security Division (CSD), has initiated the Mobile Device Security (MDS) program. The MDS program will focus on research and development (R&D) technologies needed in the area of security and privacy for the adoption of secure mobile technologies throughout the government and the overall marketplace.

Approach

To achieve the program’s mission, multiple research projects are being conducted across three areas: Mobile Roots of Trust, Mobile Malware Analysis, and Secure Adoption of Mobile Technology.

Mobile Roots of Trust

Three Small Business Innovation Researcher (SBIR) Phase II performers are developing complementary solutions in distinct areas:

Unique and unclonable keys
Root of Trust that protect the operating system and the apps
Broadening the Root of Trust beyond the device to demonstrate mission use cases

All three performers are expected to perform demonstrations of their products in Fall 2016.

Project Performers

Prime: Galois

Prime: BlueRISC

Prime: Def-Logix

Mobile Malware Analysis

Two performers are working on mobile malware analysis.

George Mason University is developing a capability to archive current and past versions of mobile applications, laying the foundation for mobile application vetting and development.
University of California, Santa Barbara is conducting research in dynamic and static mobile malware analysis to understand how mobile malware behaves on the device and evolves over time.

Project Performers

Prime: George Mason University

Prime: University of California, Santa Barbara

Secure Mobile Adoption

S&T is currently in the solicitation phase for a Broad Agency Announcement seeking R&D proposals that will enable and accelerate the adoption of secure mobile technology within the federal government workforce. Research proposals were requested across four technical topic areas:

Transactional Security Methods
Mobile Device Instrumentation
Mobile Security Management Tools
Protecting Mobile Device Layers.

For more information on this topic visit the BAA website.

The future of Mobile Security R&D will provide real value to the homeland security mission, enabling mobile technologies for government, private industry, and academia. Future work may include – but is not limited to – mobile application integrity, mobile authentication, and data management for mobile technologies.