Verizon Product Will Take Over Where Humans Leave Off

Verizon is developing a wireless product that eases the burden associated with federal standards compliance by taking policy enforcement out of the hands of the government agency and integrating it into the device itself, says Marlin Forbes, regional vice president for Verizon Business.

As the federal government increasingly embraces wireless technology, compliance with the guidelines of the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) for federal systems is crucial. But maintaining that compliance can be a challenge. All it takes is one user to download software and sign on to the network -- unwittingly introducing potential threats.

"[Wireless security] is less and less a technology issue and more a policy issue," Forbes says. "For a while, the most painful part was assessing [that] policy, but now it's more about compliance and staying up-to-date with rules. That's a major issue."

Rather than rely on the users themselves to follow procedure, Forbes says that the best way to mitigate risk is to integrate policy management into the devices themselves. Under those circumstances, the person that downloads software won't be allowed to sign on to the network at all. While no time line for availability has been released, Verizon has a product in development that would do just that, essentially tying government users into a protected enclave, and automatically enforcing the standards required under FIPS.

"The network would have the ability to bring users into the enclave with the rules and regulations that exist in that community already in place through the device," Forbes says. From the enclave, the user's system and access to the Internet could be monitored and regulated -- either internally, or by Verizon as an outsourced service. Without the user knowing, abnormal behavior could be detected and isolated, and assets moved around to mitigate risk.

"The issue [of wireless security] is not insurmountable," Forbes says. "We're just figuring out through development the best approach that would provide the user with a degree of flexibility, but within FIPS rules."