Army arsenal uses IntruShield

McAfee officials announced yesterday that personnel at the Army's Redstone Arsenal in Alabama will use the company's IntruShield system to protect the installation's computer infrastructure.

IntruShield uses anomaly-detection functionalities and profile-based techniques to block computer network attacks. The intrusion-prevention hardware and software will protect Redstone Arsenal's research and development networks for Army aviation and missile systems, said McAfee and Army officials in a Jan. 31 company statement.

"We are committed to providing our government customers with rigorously tested, award-winning intrusion-prevention technology to protect our country's critical infrastructure and systems," said Sandra Holland, McAfee's regional vice president of federal sales. Company officials said in the statement that IntruShield is the only intrusion-prevention system to earn the Evaluation Assurance Level 3 Certification from the National Information Assurance Partnership.

Network managers at Redstone Arsenal use different commercial hardware and software that play off their strengths and weaknesses to guard against hackers and malicious computer code. IntruShield meets a requirement for "near real-time anomaly detection," said Steve Carey, who works on the Army's Local Computer Incident Response Team at Redstone Arsenal, during a telephone interview.

Carey said Army officials bought more than one IntruShield system. He and McAfee officials did not divulge the number and their cost.

The procurement marks the second in two months by Army officials to improve computer security at their installations. Officials at Intrusion announced last month that service officials at Fort Hood, Texas, chose the company's SecureNet and SpySnare products to detect and block hackings, spyware infections and unauthorized peer-to-peer communications.