ASHBURN, Va. – October 21, 2020 – Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division, a trusted leading supplier of tactical data link (TDL) software and hardware solutions, has enhanced its industry leading TCG BOSS (Battlefield Operations Support System) TDL testing, simulation, and platform integration solution with support for Variable Message Format (VMF) messages.

By David Jedynak and Jason DeChiaro
An industry perspective from Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions

The U.S. Army CCDC [Combat Capabilities Development Command] C5ISR Center’s C5ISR/EW [Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance/Electronic Warfare] Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) defines an open architecture that reduces the size, weight, power, and cost of systems deployed on ground vehicles by enabling in-vehicle hardware and software resources to be shared. A panel on CMOSS at a U.S. Army Technical Exchange Meeting held earlier this year provided details on new developments underway and areas in which the Army is looking to industry for help in taking the suite of standards from prototype to deployment.

AUSA NOW Virtual Conference 2020. Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division announced at the AUSA NOW virtual conference its comprehensive strategy for system solutions designed in compliance with the U.S. Army CCDC C5ISR Center’s C4ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) and aligned with standards currently being defined by The Open Group Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium. 

By Richard Jaenicke and Steve Edwards

Security-critical applications, such as cross-domain solutions (CDS), require a secure, trusted platform on which to execute, spanning software, firmware, and hardware. The lowest layer that the application interacts with directly is a trusted operating system (OS). Trust in the OS is dependent on two factors: its robustness from a security perspective, and assurance that the OS was both loaded and configured correctly and never tampered with. OS trust also depends partly on trusted pre-OS functionality, such as secure boot firmware that executes before the OS.

ASHBURN, Va. Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division announced that it intends to acquire the stock of Pacific Star Communications (PacStar -- Portland, Oregon), in a move that Curtiss-Wright officials say will boost its position in and commitment to the U.S. and global battlefield network operations (NetOps) markets. 

Since its introduction in 2014, the National Security Agency Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) program has proven very effective in lowering the cost and speeding the accessibility of encryption for critical data-at-rest (DAR). Compared to the time and expense associated with acquiring certification and approval for Type 1 encryption solutions, CSfC has provided a breakthrough for defense and aerospace system integrators by establishing an approved means for using commercial encryption to protect critical data. What makes CSfC innovative is that it provided, for the first time, an authorized process for employing two layers of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) encryption. These could be two layers of hardware, two layers of software, or a mix of hardware and software.