Page 49 - Australian Defence Magazine February 2022

FEBRUARY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
CYBER SECURITY 49
ing in faster and more effective decision-making processes.” Bypassing the need for multiple user interfaces not only provides productivity benefits but eliminates the need for duplication of infrastructure. This is especially ideal for op- erational environments where capacity for size, weight and
power are finite.
“Environments like ships, planes or headquarters require
infrastructure that is as light as possible, as small as pos- sible, and uses as little power as possible – the CDDC’s unified interface reduces the requirement to replicate a lot of infrastructure,” Beaumont explained.
While its first use is intended for Defence networks, the CDDC can also be applied more broadly to other sensitive networks that need to be kept isolated.
“Medical networks, financial networks, industrial con- trol networks, especially for critical infrastructure – can all benefit from not being connected to the internet and as such, having a device like the CDDC that can bring in- formation together without actually interconnecting the networks, provides great benefit,” Beaumont said. “This equally applies to intelligence analysts and operational command centres that require immediate and secure fu- sion of information as well.”
DEVELOPMENT
The CDDC was originally prototyped as a hardware-only device, conceived and developed by Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) after discussions with the Chief Information Officer Group (CIOG), who were seeking a so- lution for combining different classification
DSTG began collaboration with CSIRO’s Data61, to in- corporate their secure, mathematically proven operating system seL4 into the hardware device.
“Aside seL4, the mathematics provided by Data61 was a large part of our collaboration,” Beaumont said. “They provided proofs of correctness for their software, and im- portantly proofs of confidentiality: so, proofs that sensitive information wouldn’t be leaked from a higher classification
networks into a single user endpoint.
“At the time, they (CIOG) were looking at off-the-shelf solutions, however those so- lutions were really variable from a security
perspective,” Beaumont explained.
DSTG were given the time and freedom under their Strategic Research Investment (SRI) program to explore new concepts around how a more secure system might be
created.
“It started as a series of pictures on a
“THE CDDC ENABLES AN IMMEDIACY OF INFORMATION FROM ALL THE NETWORKS THE USER OPERATES ON, WHILE KEEPING THAT INFORMATION SECURE”
network to a lower classification network - which is critical because that is what we’re trying to prevent here.”
Further collaboration with Associate Professor Toby Murray at the University of Melbourne led to the integration of software components that would increase the device’s flexibility. Professor Murray and colleague Dr Robert Sison also developed mathemati- cal methods to interrogate and test the secu- rity of the device.
The CDDC is currently undergoing a technology transition process from labora- tory research to a fieldable device, involving
whiteboard, and quickly progressed from
there,” Beaumont said. “One major challenge
was finding an algorithm that could support real-time op- eration of the composition – so that the user was able to get that composited view of information without having any latency or any noticeable effects due to the hardware that we were interposing.
“From there, within six months we had a desktop hard- ware prototype up and running. Once we had that, that’s where we started to involve other people.”
LEFT: The CDDC pictured with Defence scientist Mark Beaumont.
ABOVE: While its first use is intended for Defence networks, the CDDC can also be applied more broadly to other sensitive networks that need to be kept isolated.
a number of Australian SMEs.
“At the moment we have a collaborative undertaking be-
tween DSTG and Data61, that is working with Australian industry partners to take the current prototype and move that towards a product that’s amenable to high-assurance accreditation and almost at a stage that it would be avail- able for procurement by Defence,” Beaumont said.
The end goal, Beaumont says, is for the CDDC to be a completely sovereign product; designed, developed and manufactured here in Australia.
“I think that’s key – that Australia develops our own tech- nology, especially in this area, so we understand how it’s been designed, we understand how it’s been built, and we have greater control over the technology itself.”
A production prototype is expected to be realised around the end of 2022. ■
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