DISA awards $7.2 million PKI test contract

The Defense Information Systems Agency has chosen Tangible Software, an 8(a) contractor, to test and evaluate common access cards under the Defense Department's public-key infrastructure.The contract spans two years and could be worth as much as $7.2 million for Tangible. The company will establish a DOD PKI lab to test Common Access Cards used on secret and nonclassified DOD networks, and an integration and testing lab designed to correct deficiencies of the overall PKI architecture.The contract also requires Tangible to set up a PKI operations and maintenance subsystem at DISA processing centers in Chambersburg, Pa., and Denver that will emulate the DOD PKI equipped environment. The company will use the operations and maintenance subsystem to verify updates and patches to the overall PKI architecture, according to contract documents.Tangible also must coordinate change requests to ensure that the PKI architecture operates without interruption and is available to register new subscribers, generate or renew user certificates and respond to important recovery requests.