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Powered by the Intel vPro® platform and secured by the INTEGRITY operating system (OS), Archon ZV is redefining “secure” by providing an easy-to-use mobility solution with zero vulnerabilities.(1)
Widespread use of the Internet and the proliferation of mobile devices have created a world in which individuals, businesses, and nations are more connected than ever before. The Internet of Things (IoT), backed by edge computing, machine learning, data analytics, and cloud technology, is accelerating and amplifying those connections. Currently, the number of IoT-connected devices worldwide is expected to reach 41.6 billion by 2025.(2)
As the world becomes more connected, however, it also becomes less secure. With each new connected device, vulnerabilities multiply, resulting in a rapid increase in the number of successful cyberattacks and serious data breaches worldwide. In 2019, the total cost of cybercrime is expected to exceed USD $2 trillion—a four-fold increase since 2015.(3) Globally, malicious hackers, cyberterrorists, and other cybercriminals are a growing threat to consumer finances, business operations, and public safety. According to the January 2019 edition of the U.S. National Intelligence Strategy Report, “Cyber threats will pose an increasing risk to public health, safety, and prosperity as information technologies are integrated into critical infrastructure, vital national networks, and consumer devices.”(4)
U.S. government organizations and individuals who routinely handle classified information and safeguard national security—from military and intelligence services to designated national leaders in the executive and legislative branches—require highly secure access to mobile resources in diverse locations. Increasingly, the same is true for law enforcement and many enterprise organizations that must ensure data security, protect critical infrastructure, and guard against attacks by cybercriminals and cyberterrorists. Unfortunately, many high-security or encryption solutions are expensive, complex, inflexible, difficult to scale, and hard to manage and maintain.
Designed by ID Technologies, Archon ZV (the ZV stands for “zero vulnerabilities”) is one of the world’s most secure laptop computers. It is the first-ever turnkey mobility solution that meets Commercial Solution for Classified (CSfC) program requirements. Developed by the National Security Agency (NSA), the CSfC program is an important part of the U.S. government’s strategy to more quickly deliver layered cybersecurity solutions by leveraging emerging technologies and commercial products to meet rapidly evolving customer requirements.
The Archon ZV client is built on a high-performance Intel® Core™ vPro™ processor-powered laptop, which provides both an excellent end-user experience and sufficient performance to operate efficiently in diverse locations and under often challenging conditions. Intel vPro® technology provides the highly secure platform foundation for the Archon ZV, which is further secured by the INTEGRITY operating system (OS) from Green Hills Software and the INTEGRITY-178B Separation Kernel.
The INTEGRITY-178B Separation Kernel is the first and only separation kernel to be evaluated by the NSA and certified by National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) to EAL6+ High Robustness under the international Common Criteria standard (ISO/IEC 15408). This security rating certifies that the product is suitable for the protection of classified information and other high-value resources against well-funded, sophisticated attackers. INTEGRITY-178B is the only software product ever to achieve the EAL6+ High Robustness rating.
Today’s cyberattacks are moving down the computing stack—from software to hardware—making it increasingly difficult for the legacy model of software protecting the system to cope and keep pace with rapidly advancing threats to digital security, safety and privacy. Intel builds hardware-enabled security capabilities directly into its silicon to help protect every layer of the compute stack, including hardware, firmware, operating systems, applications, networks, and the Cloud.
For the Archon ZV solution, ID Technologies chose the Intel vPro platform for its hardware-enhanced security technologies. In addition to providing hardware-enhanced security features, the Intel vPro platform is the best for business, offering the performance, manageability, and stability of Intel® architecture while aligning with a future-proof roadmap.(5) The platform is optimized for managed IT environments and enables the enforcement of corporate policies.
In developing the Archon ZV solution, ID Technologies built on the hardware-enhanced security foundation that Intel makes available to all its partners. “When we began the challenge to build the world’s most secure personal security appliance, we started with the most secure platform,” says Dylan Conner, Chief Technology Officer at ID Technologies. “Many of the security capabilities we needed to make Archon ZV one of the world’s most secure laptops were already built into the Intel technology. Having that level of hardware-enhanced security made our impossible task possible.”
ID Technologies, using the INTEGRITY-178B Real Time Operating System (RTOS), made extensive use of Intel hardware-assisted virtualization and security technologies to build a secure and trusted virtualized environment. The foundational technology building blocks are Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT including VT-x & VT-d) and Intel® Trusted Execution Technology (Intel® TXT), all part of the Intel® Hardware Shield suite of technologies.
Intel VT and Intel TXT are built into the hardware of the Intel vPro platform and enable the hypervisor to secure operating systems, applications, and data by keeping them isolated on their own Virtual Machines (VM), running in their own virtual hardware environment. Each VM is prevented from accessing another VM’s OS, applications, data and input/output (I/O). Intel TXT enables a dynamic root of trust to ensure VMs are running on trusted hardware with trusted software, by allowing greater control of the launch stack through a Measured Launch Environment (MLE) and enabling isolation in the boot process. This creates the ability to verify the security of installation, launch, and use of the hypervisor and operating systems.
These technologies provide a highly scalable architecture that is specifically designed to harden platforms against hypervisor and BIOS attacks, malicious root kit installations, and other firmware- or software-based attacks. Archon ZV and the Green Hills INTEGRITY Global Security software use these technologies on the Intel vPro platform for the multilevel, integrated software- and hardware-security separation capabilities they provide. Intel vPro technology helps to ensure more secure platforms and greater application, data, or virtual-machine isolation while providing a foundation for more advanced solutions as security needs continue to evolve.
With Archon ZV, ID Technologies has redefined “secure” by creating a highly secure mobility solution, powered by the Intel vPro platform, which is:
The entire Archon ZV system is designed to make security invisible to end users and sustainable for IT support teams, without compromising functionality or ease of use.
For more information about the Archon ZV and Intel vPro platform security technologies, see:
