White Papers - Collaboration Gateway

Author: Scott Thomas, Senior Program Manager

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Introduction
Current and future US military operations require information sharing by the Department of Defense (DoD) community and coalition partners. Member nations and non-governmental organizations of U.S.-led coalitions will present a wide range of security classification and releasability concerns. These have a profound effect on the levels of information sharing possible in coalition operations, and there are two fundamental aspects to consider.

• How do you share information within a single classification domain between coalition partners?
• How do you share information between classification domains?

In the past, resolution of these issues focused only on point solutions. This led to multiple non-interoperable systems, frequently proprietary and expensive to procure, train and maintain. These problems are not unique to the DoD, but also afflict collaboration between other government agencies. For example, the non-DoD elements of the US Intelligence Community, DHS, FEMA, as well as local law enforcement offices, all have similar needs to share information and are faced with the same security issues when in collaboration.

To overcome these issues, Collaboration Gateway solutions are now available that provide open-standards-based turn-key systems that secure text chat in high risk environments. Trident Systems Inc. has designed a Collaboration Gateway (CG) system for use by US military and Intelligence Communities. Collaboration Gateway is integrated with certified guarding technology, such as the BAE Systems Data Sync Guard (DSG), to provide a secure cross-domain instant messaging solution. This paper describes the unique benefits and components of the Trident Collaboration Gateway solution.

CG Overview
Two important performance parameters are (1) enable secure cross-domain collaboration and (2) provide for archival search & retrieval of collaborative session data. While Collaboration Gateway addresses both of these objectives, this paper will focus on the former.

Essential considerations relate to users’ applications. In order to provide cross-domain chat, the client chat tool must be made aware of the security restrictions, including mandatory classification markings in the User Interface, as well as embedded in the chat message itself. A plethora of Instant Messaging (IM) clients exist in the marketplace today - including AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Sametime, IWS, Trillian, and a handful of lesser known tools - but none of these support the necessary security requirements. Moreover, most of these IM systems are proprietary in nature and do not interoperate.

Since it is not practical to modify all IM applications, nor even a select few, a good alternative approach is to use open standards for implementing cross-domain chat. The IETF standard, eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), commonly known as Jabber is an excellent choice. XMPP has proven to be extremely flexible due to its underlying XML foundation, and it allows for extensions to implement requisite security mechanisms.

In addition to the open standard XMPP transport, CG incorporates the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XML Digital Signature and XML Encryption standards to provide strong authentication and authorization, as well as confidentiality and data integrity. Additionally, Collaboration Gateway supports the US Intelligence Community (IC) metadata standard for classification labeling of chat messages.

The system architecture, shown below, consists of four parts:

1. A cross domain XML guard such as the DataSync Guard (DSG);
2. A XMPP-to-Guard Interface known as the Collaboration Gateway (CG);
3. An XMPP Server such as the Jabber Inc. XCP server; and
4. An XMPP Client –either Transverse or InfoWorkSpace (IWS).

Collaboration Gateway Functionality
The Collaboration Gateway provides the following functions:

1. Cross-Domain User Security Policy Enforcement;
    a. User Authentication & Authorization;
    b. Which users are allowed to chat cross-domain;
    c. Which users are allowed in which MLS rooms;

2. Cross-Domain Message Security Policy Enforcement; and
    a. Checks classification labels in message – forwards/blocks accordingly;
    b. Checks message integrity;
    c. Checks digital signature for non-repudiation of message;
    d. Identity transformation of messages;
    e. Virus scan of messages.

3. Logging & Archive/Search/Retrieval Service;
    a. All cross-domain messages logged & archived to local database;
    b. All administrative actions are logged to Log4J controlled log files. New log files are created each day. Log files must be manually deleted.

To help provide these security features, Collaboration Gateway incorporates the W3C XML Digital Signature and XML Encryption algorithms to provide strong authentication and authorization, as well as confidentiality and data integrity. Additionally, both CG and the DSG support the US Intelligence Community (IC) metadata standard for classification labeling of chat messages.

Collaboration Gateway features a modular, plug-in architecture that supports any number popular collaboration tools. CG currently supports the Transverse and InfoWorkSpace (IWS) clients. Transverse is a Jabber client modified by JFCOM to support the requisite Intelligence Community (IC) security metadata standard. IWS is the popular collaboration tool from Ezenia, who have developed an XMPP capability for IWS, and have also made enhancements to support the necessary security markings.

Data Sync Guard Overview
Trident’s system uses an XML Guard from BAE Systems (formally DigitalNet) DataSync Guard (DSG). The DSG utilizes the XTS-400 platform and runs the STOP/OS 6.1E operating system. STOP/OS 6.1E has successfully completed Common Criteria evaluation at the EAL 5+ level.

The DSG strictly enforces the security policies governing the transfer of data between enclaves on separate system-high networks operating at different classification/sensitivity levels or needs-to-know. The DSG implements policy enforcement in part by supporting XML schema validation, classification label verification, identity transformation, clean/dirty word checking and additional content verification checks.

Additionally, the cross domain application for the cross-domain chat solution will contain a special filter to handle the Jabber/XMPP message traffic. Those messages that pass the security rules of the filter will proceed to the CG on the opposite side of the guard. Those messages that fail the security rules of the filter will NOT proceed to the CG on the opposite side of the guard. The failed messages will be logged and a rejection notice given to the originating CG.

For improved performance, the DSG uses sockets as its connection mechanism. The DSG achieves near-real time data transfers, enabling reliable synchronization of data across domains. Moreover, the DSG performs most of its actions in RAM, reducing transaction processing time even further by eliminating the need for disk writes and reads.

XMPP Clients
The Collaboration Gateway supports XMPP as the standard for Instant Messaging. A key advantage is that CG is not tied to any one single chat tool, since any IM client may be extended to support the XMPP protocol. A perfect example of this is Ezenia’s InfoWorkSpace (IWS) application. IWS is the defacto collaboration tool in the US Intelligence Community and therefore has a large installed user base, but uses proprietary technology. Nonetheless, it was in Ezenia’s best interest to enable interoperability between IWS and other IM tools, and as a result, IWS 3.0 now supports XMPP.¹

Trident Systems is working closely with Ezenia to enable IWS to operate cross-domain. Specifically, Ezenia is developing a Multi-Level Secure (MLS) module that allows IWS to securely communicate with the Collaboration Gateway that includes support for the digital signatures and requisite classification markings.

JFCOM’s Transverse
In addition to the IWS tool, JFCOM has modified the open source BuddySpace Jabber client from Open University, so that may operate cross-domain and has recently renamed TransVerse.

Similar to IWS, the TransVerse application facilitates a virtual work team community and its capabilities are similar to those found in physical office environments. For example, most of the daily tools that you use, and the places that you visit (e.g., HQs and individual meeting rooms) are found within the TransVerse server environment.

TransVerse provides the following core functionalities:
• Instant messaging/chat
• Group Chat
• Presence
• Contact management
• File transfer
• Alerts
• Language Translation
• Text Monitoring

Figure 2 below shows the graphic user interface (GUI) for the TransVerse client. It is a good representation of the necessary GUI modifications for cross-domain chat, including the security banner, and drop-down menu for selecting the appropriate classification marking for each message (it defaults to the room classification level).

Current Status
Under sponsorship from JFCOM, the Collaboration Gateway and BAE Systems’ DataSync Guard, as part of the JFCOM Cross-Domain Collaborative Information Environment (CDCIE), have successfully completed the initial Certification Testing & Evaluation (CT&E) by NSA. The CDCIE system is now undergoing regression testing at NSA, Ft. Meade. The regression testing is expected to be completed 4Q’06 (Calendar Year).

Summary
The Collaboration Gateway provides a much needed capability for today’s Military, Intelligence Community and other government agencies and their contractors for secure, cross-domain collaboration.

The Trident System Collaboration Gateway was developed under SBIR funding with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) in Rome, New York, and the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) in Suffolk, VA.

Contact: Sheldon Shapiro

 703-267-2302