AppleInsider Staff
The U.S. Department of Defense said on Friday that it plans to allow Apple's iOS devices onto the Pentagon's secure network early next week, opening the door for lucrative military contracts currently dominated by BlackBerry.
Alana Johnson, a spokesperson for the Pentagon’s Defense Information Systems Agency, told Bloomberg that, if approved next week, government-issued devices running Apple's iOS 6 would be granted access to highly secure military networks.
The news comes one week after Apple's smartphone rival Samsung had its Knox-compatible devices cleared for use on DoD systems. That report also noted devices running the latest BlackBerry 10 operating system received certification.
Apple has recently made significant headway in the government sector, and recently saw the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Computer Security Division grant FIPS 140-2 certification to iOS CoreCrypto Kernel Module v3.0, a module found in iOS 6.
While a step in the right direction for Apple, the Pentagon must first build out a mobile device management system in order for iPhone and iPads to proliferate in the secure environment, Johnson said. There is currently no timeline for such a project.
Chip Loder
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Andrew Orr
19 Comments
AI is getting some mileage from this story.
They already have Blackberry's MDM and Blackberry recently announced the capability of adding iOS devices to it so there shouldn't be a major problem adding iOS devices to the existing DoD infrastructure. Of course, this means iOS devices will be under the control of the Blackberry system, not the best way of doing things but Apple devices have always had to use non-Apple products to manage them in the government sector.
What do they do about the camera?
What do they do about the camera?
The camera can be disabled in the security profile. Note that these approvals are just to access sensitive information networks - not anything classified.
[quote name="rob53" url="/t/157476/apples-iphone-ipad-to-be-granted-pentagon-security-clearance-next-week#post_2325331"]They already have Blackberry's MDM and Blackberry recently announced the capability of adding iOS devices to it so there shouldn't be a major problem adding iOS devices to the existing DoD infrastructure. Of course, this means iOS devices will be under the control of the Blackberry system, not the best way of doing things but Apple devices have always had to use non-Apple products to manage them in the government sector.[/quote] The United States Department of Defense already has Blackberry Enterprise Server 10? Do you have a source?