IT professionals are acutely aware of the large and growing number of devices that are connected to their company networks, either point-to-point, through their physical network or by way of wireless technology. As more devices are added, this increases the complexity of the network, which in turn increases the attack surface and risks of a major breach. Firewalls and VPNs alone without the proper security measures in place, are often not enough to reduce the risks involved.

Companies are mainly breached because they require more visibility and control to diminish today’s threats and they are not able to detect a threat until it has already occurred. In this light, companies are looking for alternatives to legacy point-to-point VPNs, which are more secure and performant.  This is especially true for enterprises and organizations supporting mission critical systems and applications, including government and military organizations as well as their contractors.

Earlier this year, Atlanta-based Envistacom, LLC, a leading technology company that provides advanced communications, cyber and intelligence operations solutions to the U.S. DoD and partners in the aerospace, defence and intelligence communities, announced that they have partnered with Dispersive Networks to integrate the Dispersive Virtual Network (DVN) into Envistacom’s network offerings to reinforce security for its customers globally.

DVN by Dispersive Networks has been developed as a multi-path, software-defined network security overlay solution, which sends packets through multiple streams to deliver enhanced security, reliability, and performance. Individual streams are divided and encrypted while programming each individual stream to move when attacked or impaired, repairing itself, concealing and making it difficult to be breached.

"While many SD-WAN solutions combine routing, critical network functions and applications, few also include comprehensive security. Dispersive Networks SASE solution has become critical in powering our customer’s digital transformation.  We are proud to join forces with Dispersive and offer this technology to our customers,” said Alan Carson, President, Envistacom.

“Envistacom is one of the fastest growing and most innovative leaders in satellite communications and Enterprise technology solutions & services. Dispersive is honored to be a part of Envistacom’s growing solution set and we look forward to supporting their efforts to improve customer and mission communications,” said Dispersive Networks Chief Revenue Officer, Christopher Swan.

Dr. Ebonése Olfus, Vice President of Cyber Strategy & Emerging Technologies at Envistacom, working with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), explained in a white paper published by the company, that U.S. “adversaries employ reverse engineering techniques to exploit weapon systems and technical plans for their benefit. Perhaps even more significant, they also gain insight into operational concepts and system use developed from decades of U.S. operational and developmental programs. Such information provides tremendous benefit to an adversary, shortening time for development of countermeasures by years.”

Dr. Olfus also explained that the DoD, “will continue to operate in a complex environment indefinitely. Competition for wealth, resources, political authority, sovereignty, and legitimacy will produce a variety of conflicts between rapidly evolving and adaptive threats in an increasingly competitive but interconnected world. In an environment of decreasing resources, the DoD will shift in strategic focus while preparing to confront these threats. Furthermore, the distinctions between threats in the future will blur because of the complexity of adversaries, the multiplicity of actors involved, and the ability of threats to adapt rapidly. Adversaries will employ anti-access and area-denial strategies, innovative tactics, and advanced technologies to oppose U.S. security interests.”

Resiliency is key, according to Dr. Olfus, which “is related to survivability, which builds on the disciplines of security, fault tolerance, safety, reliability, and performance.” In her summary of a report developed by the DoD by The Defense Science Board’s recommendation was to “direct specific actions to introduce cyber resiliency standards and requirements throughout DoD force structure. ‘These resilience standards should be used to design, build and measure capability against threats’, “and the standards should evolve as the cyber threat evolves.”

As a major government contractor, Envistacom works with a variety of agencies, including the DoD, to continually develop, improve and implement increasingly sophisticated networking technologies to protect connected communications and data.

“It is at the high end of the continuum that technology resilience will matter most to enable continuity of mission critical operations and support rapid reconstitution of existing or minimally essential capabilities or the deployment of alternative means of accomplishing the mission,” Dr. Olfus wrote. “When designing a technology, we should incorporate strategies and techniques

that support a balanced combination of protections, detections, and adaptive technical and operational responses that dynamically evolve in response to current and future cyber events. Consequently, we need to design systems that are agile, adaptive, resistant, and resilient to being compromised. Cyber technology resilience is crucial to mission success.”