Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) has won a potential $189 million Defense Information Systems Agency task order to provide cybersecurity protection services across Pentagon and intelligence community networks.
The Falls Church, Va.-based contractor will implement the commercial-off-the-shelf host based security system software.
Karen Williams, Northrop vice president for defense technologies, said cybersecurity is one of the company’s four core businesses due to its role in national defense.
Security solution provider McAfee is subcontracted to help implement the cyber solution.
Tom Conway, McAfee’s director of federal business development, told GovCon Wire the cybersecurity provider holds the core intellectual property to HBSS and began developing the system six years ago.
Conway said HBSS’s framework has evolved throughout the last six years to incorporate additional capabilities to meet the challenges of new cyber threats.
“The framework is like a Swiss Army knife, ” said Conway. “It touches everything inside the department with a uniform approach.”
Conway said the system covers data encryption, data lost prevention and access control options.
In addition, he said the framework can handle anywhere from five to seven million endpoints, making it optimal to protect the department’s growing network system.
Ken Kartsen, McAfee’s public sector vice president for federal sales, said the companies will deploy the solution on servers, desktops and notebooks.
Conway added the system will also work to secure mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.
Northrop and McAfee will complete work for the task order for three base years under the Encore 2 contract vehicle.
The vehicle also includes two one-year options.
Northrop is the prime integrator on the contract and will provide software license maintenance support services, help desk, training and architectural infrastructure personnel.
The Northrop and McAfee team will work to install HBSS on all unclassified and classified networks in order to defend networks from cyber attacks.
Northrop said the team will initially perform engineering, deployment and maintenance support from Fort Meade, Md.
