By Vicky Falcón
NAVAIR Public Affairs Office

The Department of the Navy has established a new anti-tamper policy and process and the technical warrant holder (the person responsible for anti-tamper execution for DON) is now located at NAS Patuxent River, Md.

The responsibility for anti-tamper (AT) work was formerly changed to NAVAIR from the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition) in 2005, with the first year spent standing up the organization and developing policy and processes.

“We are now fully engaged – even though there are still some Navy programs unaware of the change,” said Don Traeger, AT Security Director.

According to Traeger, the aim of the department is to deter or delay the reverse engineering of Navy systems by integrating protective measures during the development phase of the program.

Reverse engineering is a global enterprise where open source attacks on microelectronics are prolific and proficient. There are many commercial reverse engineering vendors; software and firmware tools; even workshops on reverse engineering techniques.

“We want to make it more difficult if the system falls into unauthorized hands, either on the battlefield or through foreign military sales,” he explained. “Anti-tamper is designed to make it difficult to open the systems and obtain critical program information and technology.”

Though a determined adversary with unlimited funds will eventually crack any technology, Traeger explained that anti-tamper techniques can make that process so involved and so difficult that the system will be obsolete by the time it is cracked.

“We need to keep our battlefield superiority,” he added. “If we don’t protect our critical technology, we’ll lose that advantage.”

Anti-tamper implementation is a DOD requirement, with each service department having their own technical authority. Each of the Navy’s system commands, the United States Marine Corps, NAVAIR, NAVSEA and SPAWAR, have their own technical warrant holder (see list below) responsible for endorsing their program AT plans.

With that endorsement, the plans then go to the Navy’s AT office at Patuxent River where funding issues, technical processes and collaboration efforts are hammered out. The AT Technical Warrant Holder responsible for AT execution across the DON at that level is Darrell Cole.

“One of the main reasons our office was formed was to align anti-tamper within systems engineering,” said Cole. “Now we are able to integrate anti-tamper into the engineering and engineering review processes, as well as oversee multiple procedures and improve partnering efforts.”

Cole then forwards those plans to RDML Steven Eastburg, Commander, Naval Air Warfare System, Aircraft Division, with recommendations for his final endorsement or suggested changes.

“Right now we have 12 AT plans under review here,” said Traeger, who is expecting that number to increase dramatically.

“Some programs are getting caught at the last moment adding AT requirements and that can be costly,” said Traeger. He and his team have a “get well” plan they use to assist these programs in addressing AT requirements. Other programs are adding AT during the program management review stage or during “Milestone B.”

According to Traeger, the anti-tamper process should begin during the development phase of any project.

“The earlier they get their AT on board, the better,” he explained. “If AT is addressed in advance, it can be designed in advance, potentially saving millions of dollars.”

The Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle had AT processes integrated early in its development, so when it was sent into Iraq to fill an urgent war requirement, the processes were already in place to safeguard that technology.

“Anti-tamper is not a silver bullet and it isn’t a substitute for other security practices,” he said. “It is simply the last line of defense.”

The Defense Acquisition University (DAU) is offering a Program Manager Introduction to Anti-Tamper class (CLE 022) discussing DOD critical technology and how AT fits within the spectrum of DOD activities on protecting Critical Program Information. For more information go to http://www.dau.mil/.

The Technical Warrant Holders for Anti-Tamper by SYSCOM are:
NAVAIR – Ken Goff, 301-342-0142 ([email protected])
NAVSEA – Darren Crum, 812-854-6175 ([email protected])
MARCOR – Mike Davis, 703-432-3824 ([email protected])
SPAWAR – Kevin Wu, 858-537-0228 ([email protected])