Telos's Xacta WLAN Gives Air Force Generals Secure Access to Home Base Networks While Attending the CORONA Conference; Senior Staff at Colorado Springs Strategic Planning Meeting Had Full Access to Their Home Networks to Maintain Chain of Command.

ASHBURN, Va. -- The global war on terror does not stop for a conference - even an important one. Therefore the senior Air Force leadership that met in Colorado Springs this November to discuss strategic planning for the Air Force needed to accomplish two jobs at once. They needed to focus on the meetings, and they needed to continue leading their major commands remotely from the conference center.

To accommodate these two priorities, CORONA conference planners ensured 24x7 network access for the generals while in the conference sessions as well as in their private visitor officer quarters. Conference planners then turned to Telos(R) Corporation to provide a secure wireless local area network (WLAN) for each of the quarters. Telos installed the Xacta Secure WLAN, a product developed by Xacta Corporation, Telos' wholly-owned subsidiary. This WLAN gave the generals full reach-back access to their home networks.

Telos began installing the networks on October 11 and completed the installation and testing by October 29, 2005, two days before the beginning of the conference.

Generals could access their own command's systems by using a local virtual private network (VPN) to tunnel to the Non-secure Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet). From here, they could access VPNs that allowed them to tunnel back to their home networks. All information traveling through the system was secured by three levels of encryption.

In addition to encryption, the system included multiple layers of security. Each access point was partnered with an intrusion detection system device capable of identifying and providing the location of hackers attempting to join the system using unauthorized access points. The entire perimeter and coverage areas were also monitored by a location based security system capable of identifying, tracking and locating any laptop or computer that attempted unauthorized access. The hacker could be located within three meters of their location.

According to Air Force Chief of Staff, Michael T. Mosely, "When working with senior leadership our goal is to host a flawless conference, which is no easy task. We knew secure wireless access to information was critical to CORONA's success. Working with Telos, the installation and deployment of the secure wireless LAN went off flawlessly. General's had what they needed to ensure they could monitor their commands while attending the CORONA. As a result of everyone's efforts, the 10th Communications Squadron has received significant praise from Air Force leadership, including a coveted general's coin."

In total, Telos installed 64 secure WLAN devices at the Air Force Academy, spanning rooms on two floors of two buildings.

"This is the second year we've had the opportunity to work with the 10th Communications Squadron in support of CORONA. The fall conference last year also went smoothly," said Tom Badders, director of wireless strategic development. "The timeframe to deploy the project was tight, but we were able to leverage secure wireless work we do for the Air Force all around the world to meet the deadline. Our product is preconfigured for easy installation in the Air Force environment, and while we had support engineers standing by at the meeting in case of any issues, everything worked beautifully from a technical perspective."

About Telos

Telos Corporation has provided innovative IT solutions and services to the Federal Government for more than 30 years. Telos and Xacta Corporation, its subsidiary for security solutions, have since 1989 ensured that the Government's most security-conscious organizations comply with demanding Federal and DoD information security mandates. Xacta's offerings include enterprise IT security management solutions, enterprise security consulting services, secure wireless networking, enterprise messaging, and secure credentialing solutions. Its solutions are represented to the Federal Government on Telos' GSA schedule. For more information, visit www.telos.com.

"Telos" is a registered trademark of Telos Corporation. All other product, service, and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.