The Department of Homeland Security on Monday awarded small research and development (R&D) contracts to two companies for mobile network security, marking the last two awards under Secure and Resilient Mobile Network Infrastructure (SRMNI) project.
The awards are to GuidePoint Security, $915,000 for the Mobile Network Traffic Visibility for the Enterprise, and AppCensus, Inc., $1.2 million for Mobile Traffic Intelligence at Scale. GuidePoint, which is based in Northern Virginia, will use a FedRAMP security-as-a-service platform provided by Zscaler to model a trusted internet connection-based architecture aimed at improving security of federal systems and data that are accessed through government-managed mobile devices.
The award to California-based AppCensus will build on the company's platform to monitor traffic from mobile systems and apps to identify risks and detect and filter sensitive traffic before it leaves mobile devices, DHS said.
The awards were made by the Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate and address the top mobile cyber security priorities of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
"In the online world, the more insight you have about the traffic on your devices and networks, the more effectively your cyber security defenses can be implemented," Matthew Hartman, deputy executive Assistant Director of Cybersecurity for CISA, said in a statement. "These R&D projects will support CISA's effort to address DNS resolution on federal networks and an applicable Trusted Internet Connection 3.0 security overlay, both of which will greatly enhance enterprise mobile security and the backend federal government networks that make mobility possible for the workforce."
In February, DHS S&T awarded seven R&D contracts to five companies and the Univ. of Florida and Texas A&M Univ. under the SRMNI program in support of CISA's efforts to secure the mobile traffic supply chain and critical mobile network infrastructure, including building security into the emerging 5G network. In addition to the colleges, those awards were to 4K Solutions, Commdex, LLC, Aether Argus Inc., Red Balloon Security, and AdaptiveMobile Security Inc.