Thursday, April 11, 2013

Army assures commercial mobile devices are secure | Article | The United States Army

Army assures commercial mobile devices are secure | Article | The United States Army: The Army agrees with the recently released DOD Inspector General report that found two Army organizations did not follow policies for tracking and configuring commercial mobile devices using the Android, Apple iOS, and Windows operating systems between October 2010 and May 2012.

Both the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center moved immediately to remedy the issues and revised their administrative controls.

"This year, the Army has published additional policies that help ensure oversight of all IT equipment, security and spending, to include commercial mobile devices," said Lt. Gen. Susan Lawrence, the Army Chief Information Officer/G-6 (CIO/G-6). For example, no IT equipment -- including commercial mobile devices, or CMDs -- can be purchased without approval through the Army CIO/G-6 process.

The Army published new requirements to enforce information assurance, or IA, and cybersecurity, and improve commander accountability, Feb. 1. Commanders must assess their IA posture and weaknesses via Army assessment tools, and develop a plan of action within five months. During a planned Army-wide IA/Cybersecurity awareness week this fall, commanders will train and teach their program to all in their command.