The Department of Homeland Security is seeking help to improve the security and resiliency of legacy and future wireless networks, initiating a new research and development project to for vendors to bid on.
The department’s Cybersecurity and Infratructure Security Agency and the Science and Technology Directorate have released a Broad Agency Announcement for a Secure and Resilient Mobile Network Infrastructure (SRMNI) that seeks innovative approaches and technologies to protect legacy, current and 5G mobile network communications, services, and equipment against all threats and vulnerabilities.
“The newly created SRMNI R&D project will lead the government’s development of innovative sollutions and technologies to protect legacy, current and 5G mobile network communications, services and equipment,” says William Bryan, acting S&T chief. “The project will provide a comprehensive approach to S&T’s Mobile Security R&D focus on securing all aspects of mobile communicaitons through public-private partnerships.”
A previous DHS study on mobile device security called for government-funded R&D to address challenges to the government’s adoption of mobile technologies. The study also called for the government to establish partnerships with the private sector, including mobile network operators and associations and for the government to participate in consensus-based voluntary mobile security standards and best practices to protect privacy and availability of the government’s communications.
An SRMNI Industry Day will be hosted by CISA and S&T on May 16 in Washington, D.C. to discuss the BAA and to answer questions.
“I think what we’re trying to get to in our 5G strategy is understand what the risks are and the security frameworks that we can deploy around it,” Chris Krebs, director of CISA, told reporters on April 22 during a brief gaggle after he spoke at an AFCEA Homeland Security event. “Again, just trying to provide a mechanism to directly engage with industry. Provide resources to focused security standards assessment and potentially development but just another one of those arrows in the quiver.”
Bob Kolasky, director of CISA’s National Risk Management Center, said April 25 at McAfee’s annual Security Through Innovation Summit that security and resiliency of 5G networks is a priory of CISA’s. He highlighted that 5G networks will enable data sharing, automation and communications on such a large scale that security and resilience have to be built in from the start.
“It is much more cost effective to build in security now,” he said.