LPS-Public is an answer to Airmen on the fly

  • Published
  • By Josh Aycock
  • 88 Air Base Wing Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  Planes are not the only things on the fly in today's Air Force. Airmen, civilians and contractors alike are increasingly finding themselves on the move both at home and abroad performing vital Air Force missions.

With this increased mobility comes an increased need for safe Internet access no matter how, when, where or why. Lightweight Portable Security - Public Edition answers those questions and gives all Department of Defense employees the ability to "plug-in" securely to the web and DoD sites with the use of a CD and common access card reader, virtually no matter what the condition of their computer. Anyone can download LPS-Public free from spi.dod.mil

"Imagine a pilot overseas who has to get orders but only has a very questionable Internet café computer," said Lt. Col. Ken Edge, Air Force Research Laboratory's Software Protection Initiative (SPI) program manager. "With LPS-Public and a smartcard reader, he can safely enter the CAC-authenticated Air Force Portal and his webmail. Likewise, sailors can securely bank online overseas, and soldiers can safely use social networking sites."

Created by AFRL's Autonomic Trusted Sensing for Persistent Intelligence (ATSPI) Technology Office, for the Director of Defense, Research and Engineering's SPI, LPS-Public boots straight from a CD, runs only in RAM, bypasses the local hard drive and does not require administrative rights. LPS-Public boots a very thin Linux OS focused solely on running a modern Firefox browser with many useful add-ons, CAC middleware, and a PDF viewer. This gives users the ability to safely browse and gain access instantly without having to install anything from almost any Mac, Windows, or Linux computer.

"LPS-Public focuses on providing a safe and simple Internet browsing experience and anyone, anywhere can download if for free. Just download the ISO file from spi.dod.mil, burn it to a CD and restart. Within minutes you've created a secure end node for cloud computing," said Edge.

Increasingly DoD sites are requiring CAC verification before entering the site, completely forgoing the traditional username/password login. The AF Portal recently became the latest site to require stricter user verification. On Jan. 15 the AF Portal started granting access to users with CAC or public key infrastructure certificate logins only.

The current DoD solution for Windows XP Pro and Vista users, is to install licensed middleware, drivers and certificates to each computer they want to use. The user is out of luck if he has a Mac or Linux OS or cannot install the software. LPS-Public is an easy alternative to enter these sites.

"More and more, organized criminals profit by corrupting webpages or email that inject malware into personal, corporate, or government PCs," said Edge. "LPS prevents malware from being installed, and even if it did, it would disappear upon shutdown. There is no place for malware to hide in LPS."

LPS-Public breathes new life into damaged systems; computers that are old, slow, infected, crashed, or missing a hard drive can now browse the Internet again. Because LPS-Public operates only in RAM and does not access the hard drive, users may visit risky, malware-infected sites with less risk. Likewise, user's private sessions and sensitive transactions occur within a leave-no-local-trace browsing environment.

The DDR&E SPI also offers medium and heavyweight mobile and enterprise cyber-defense solutions custom crafted to users particular needs. SPI protects critical DoD intellectual property against nation-state class threats by taking an alternative approach to security based on three tenets - 1. Focus on What's Critical, 2. Move it Out-of-Band, and 3. Detect, React, Adapt. SPI researches, designs, develops, tests and deploys protections to prevent piracy, tampering and reverse engineering of critical software code and data. SPI builds cost-effective, adoptable, strong defenses from today's commercial components. The AFRL's ATSPI Technology Office manages SPI for the DDR&E. via the High Performance Computing and Modernization Program.

Download the free LPS-Public ISO image from http://spi.dod.mil/lipose.htm.