Redwall Technologies, the leading ISV for multi-modal endpoint device security, today announced that the United States Marine Corps has exercised Redwall’s Phase 1 option of the Data Integrity and Confidentiality SBIR (N175-105) award. The SBIR program is a highly competitive system that encourages domestic small businesses to engage in Federal R&D projects that have the potential for commercialization. Redwall has been chosen exclusively by the Marine Corps ‘Data Security and Resilient Operating System Environment’ award to participate in the Phase 1 option of the program with their innovative data security product, Redwall Mobile®.
Redwall has now been selected as the sole company to continue with the Phase 1 SBIR award aimed at securing communications and data across a multitude of operating systems used by Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM).
“We are honored to have been selected for the SBIR Phase 1 option,” said John Rosenstengel, Redwall president and CEO. “We have been working on end-point device security for several years and have made a point to do it very differently from our competitors. With Redwall, military units and first responders can use one multiple-persona mobile device for both personal and work use without fear that data will be compromised.”
The uniqueness of Redwall Mobile® resides in securing devices at the kernel, the intermediary code between device hardware and software. This approach is a departure from many competing mobile security tools that operate at the application layer using a “sandbox” methodology to isolate applications and data within the operating system. A secure sandbox, or container, is created where corporate (or government) data and apps reside, while personal data and apps remain intact and unchanged. This dual-persona smartphone security method allows one smartphone to be used for both personal and business use.
The issue with the containerized, dual-mode method is the data left in memory on the device that is still accessible in both sandbox and personal-use mode. In this instance, true app/data isolation is not achieved because of the memory leakage.
The Redwall Mobile® method of hardening the smartphone at the kernel layer creates a purer and completely segmented system with multiple personas for both personal and business use. Redwall Mobile® uses cryptographic keys to isolate data and apps for each persona so that when the user changes from one persona to the next, there is no data leakage to memory; it is removed when the user leaves that persona.
“Against the increasingly sophisticated attacks and privacy violations on mobile devices and associated services today, it was clear that nothing was working. Someone had to throw the book out and come up with something completely new, so we did that,” said Redwall Chief Technology Officer, Eric Üner. “We’ve already demonstrated resilience against attacks that crush other hardened and ‘secure’ mobile devices, and the work we’re performing for the U.S. Marine Corps pushes this state of the art approach even further.”
About Redwall Mobile®
More than just a container or simple switch between work and home profiles, Redwall Mobile® features multi-modal personas, each with its own unique apps, data, settings, and encryption keys. The multi-modal feature of Redwall Mobile® delivers a cleaner operating environment because it secures the device at the kernel layer, below the application stack. This security architecture allows Redwall to provide customers with any mode of persona that their security policy requires, whereby one BYOD (or CYOD) user can have any number of device personas. Each persona can be built with its own securely isolated apps, data, settings, and authentication requirements that define which processes can access which system features, drivers, files, and networks.
With this unique approach, Redwall Mobile® puts client organizations in a more proactive posture limiting malicious user and virus activity by halting access to sensitive corporate (or personal) data below the application stack. Because Redwall operates below the application layer, it thwarts even highly-sophisticated kernel and driver exploits. Furthermore, Android devices hardened with Redwall are immune to threats like TowelRoot and KingRoot without the need for patches or updates of any kind, and will defend against future zero-day attacks without the need to push an update. No emergency patching is required in this set-and-forget mode of securing access to data and sensitive IP.
Because this technology is firmware-based, it can also be applied to IoT components such as medical instruments, smart appliances, SCADA devices, sensors, and other smart devices.
About Redwall Technologies, LLC
Redwall Technologies was founded in 2013 by a group of defense and intelligence practitioners who had a common desire to secure mobile points of intrusion into government datacenters. Rather than looking at signatures of viruses already in circulation, Redwall founders developed their product on the premise of what would keep us from hacking into a device? Redwall founders took to the offensive, searching for a means to prevent their own “white-hat” hacker team from compromising a mobile device. This led to their development team building device-hardening tools for smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices such as those in SCADA, CANBus, and similar networks.
Redwall’s unique, patented technology is typically installed at organizations whose users rely heavily on the highest levels of device performance and availability, while ensuring military-grade security. The prototypical Redwall Technology user is a first responder in a disaster zone or member of a military operations team engaging in matters of national security whose field communications require adapting to fast-changing environments and threat landscapes. For more information on Redwall Technologies, please visit www.redwall.us.
