The Army is taking steps to modernize the security of its endpoint devices with a five-year, $182 million contract to McAfee and InfoReliance to deliver a risk management platform aimed at minimizing the cyber attack surface and automate threat report metrics.

Under the deal announced last Thursday, McAfee and InfoReliance will partner to implement and operate the Army Endpoint Security System (AESS) designed to deliver real-time situational awareness of all 1.4 million Army endpoints.iStock Cyber Lock

The proprietary AESS utilizes McAfee’s Data Exchange Layer which will allow the Army to conduct adaptive threat detection and automated data sharing on potential cyber attacks directed against endpoint devices.

“The McAfee solutions the Army has chosen represent a whole new way of looking at government security operations, ensuring timely and continuous access to modern technology so they can innovate at the pace of the adversary,” said McAfee Vice President Ken Kartsen in a statement. “We’re proud the Army has selected our dynamic endpoint threat defense combined with automated indicator of compromise (IOC) threat intelligence sharing enabled by McAfee DXL, allowing the Army to protect against more threats, faster, and with fewer resources.”

InfoReliance is tasked with implementing McAfee’s AESS and delivering capabilities including real-time endpoint visibility with global control, automated asset management, data loss prevention and routine cyber security hygiene for the Army’s devices.

“The Army was responsible for endpoint security and employed multiple systems integrators via separate contracts to support their efforts. The new AESS contract collapses the separate contracts into one with a global reach, eliminating redundancies, saving the government time and money, and consolidating management to ensure a common framework,” Kartsen told Defense Daily.

McAfee will deliver AESS to the Army as a fully-managed Platform-as-a Service while providing life cycle product engineering and operations for the platform. InfoReliance will deliver program management services and deliverables such as information assurance, logistics and reporting support for AESS.

AESS is a cloud-ready platform designed for information sharing, and the system is designed to relay IOC information with included countermeasures designed to protect against future threats and potential malware.

The Army awarded the contract under InfoReliance’s Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) Solutions vehicle which is currently a NASA SEWP V government-wide acquisition contract.

“This award is the outcome of years of strategic efforts implementing McAfee solutions that advance the security defenses and response capabilities of our customers and delivering them as a service,” said InfoReliance Chief Strategy Officer Aaron M. Faulkner in a statement. 

McAfee and InfoReliance first partnered to deliver risk management solutions in 2013, and began work on the AESS platform in late 2015, according to Kartsen.