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NSWC Crane Aides in Prevention of Reverse Engineering of Military Systems

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS100220-15
Release Date: 2/20/2010 11:33:00 AM

From Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Corporate Communications

CRANE, Ind. (NNS) -- Experts from Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane) participated in an anti-tamper (AT) study that will lead to increased protection of U.S. military systems and provide the warfighter with safer and more effective combat technologies.

NSWC Crane's Strategic Missions Center experts were part of the team that presented Analysis of Alternative (AoA) study findings to the Department of Defense's Anti-Tamper Executive Agent (DoD ATEA) in Washington, Dec. 15, 2009. The study gave the ATEA recommended plans and approaches for developing and increasing AT protections in secure processors, ultimately preventing unauthorized access to U.S. critical program information (CPI) through reverse engineering.

AT prevents or delays reverse engineering, which can result in the development of countermeasures to U.S. systems, transfer of technological information and unauthorized system enhancements. The study focused on secure processors that provide general system processing as well as AT protection. The amount of CPI and risk exposure of a system determines the level of protection the processor requires.

Team researched design features, manufacturing techniques and operational features to best implement increased protection levels. NSWC Crane engineer and Department of the Navy AT Science & Technology Coordinator, Dr. Darren Crum as well as Missile Defense Agency AT Coordinator, Mr. Kip Hoffer participated in the study.

"The AoA team has significant experience in the design, manufacture and use of secure processors. The team brought years of expertise to this study," said Crum.

DoD seeks to improve the processors on military systems, such as missiles and aircraft, to achieve a security Level 4 - to withstand simple to complex adversarial reverse engineering attacks. Improvements to the processors will provide a less expensive, more accessible and higher protection level for U.S. technologies.

Strategic Missions Center anti-tamper experts participated on the AoA study team as Navy representatives. Other team members included representatives from Air Force Research Lab, Army, Missile Defense Agency, Booz-Allen-Hamilton, University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SAIC and Luna Innovations, Inc.

"U.S. Warfighters are trained to defend against enemy systems and tactics," said Crum. "It is the anti-tamper community's job to ensure the enemy cannot reverse engineer our systems and develop countermeasures or tactics, which could put our Warfighters at a disadvantage."