AFRL Successfully Demonstrates High-Assurance Security Architecture Published Dec. 12, 2006 By Plans and Programs Directorate AFRL/XP WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- AFRL is working with industry under the High-Assurance Security Architecture for Embedded Systems program to develop and advance the Multiple Independent Levels of Security/Safety (MILS) architecture, an enabling technology offering an affordable near-term solution to building high-assurance systems such as multilevel security systems. AFRL successfully demonstrated the MILS architecture by integrating products from competing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) vendors to showcase the benefits of the MILS architecture applied to warfighter nodes and connected to the Global Information Grid (GIG). Raytheon, under contract with AFRL, provided the application software and orchestrated the MILS demonstration, which presented a simulated airborne reconnaissance mission scenario using MILS products supplied by leading software vendors and running on networked processors and workstations. The simulated scenario included control and sensor applications running at different levels of security on the same processor and featured an animated display of aircraft and targets on a MILS workstation. The reconnaissance aircraft were simulated on embedded processors running MILS separation kernels from three COTS vendors: Green Hills® Software, LynuxWorks™, and Wind River Systems. A Linux® workstation represented the reachback into the GIG. The MILS communications software, developed by Objective Interface Systems, ensured the separation of multiple levels of data across platforms through the use of COTS hardware and software. AFRL and its industry partners successfully demonstrated a capability to affordably ensure the separation of multiple levels of data using COTS components. This technology provides the Air Force (AF) and other services with a capability to protect warfighter data, thereby contributing significantly to the AF's position as a leader in the global information systems technologies defense arena. Furthermore, the MILS architecture is not only applicable to the Department of Defense, but is directly transferable to other domains involving a critical infrastructure, including supervisory control and data acquisition, financial, medical, intelligent transportation systems, and consumer electronics applications--all of which require secure, high-assurance performance.