Motorola, manufacturer of the subscriber equipment for the Iridium satellite system, announced today that the National Security Agency (NSA) has certified Motorola’s Type 1 Iridium Security Module (ISM) for the new Motorola Satellite Series 9505 portable telephone.
The ISM is intended for the protection of voice communications at security levels up to and including Top Secret. These products are for use with the Iridium global communications satellite network, which is owned by Iridium Satellite LLC.
The module is the first Type 1 certified security product using Motorola’s revolutionary new sCore architecture which employs a single, commercial digital signal processor (DSP) supported by commercial programmable logic.
With this small attachment, authorized users who subscribe to satellite voice service will now be able to digitally encrypt their sensitive voice conversations.
The ISM provides secure calls between ISM-equipped Motorola 9505 satellite telephones and, when operating through a special interface in the Government gateway, with existing Secure Telephone Units (STU-III).
Last December, the DoD completed a multi-year contract with Iridium Satellite LLC allowing up to 20,000 subscribers a year to use the company’s voice and data services.
“The NSA certification of our Satellite Series security module allows us to provide the U.S. Government with another high assurance security solution,” said Mark Fried, corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola’s Integrated Information Systems Group.
“It represents a technological milestone as the first portable means to truly global, secure satellite communication.”
The architecture used in this COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) based, low cost, low power, software-driven module will be the core design used in Motorola’s security solutions for future commercial and custom information products and systems.
Capable of executing a flexible suite of algorithms, it can be implemented on Motorola’s family of unclassified and exportable processors to provide embedded assurance features for a multitude of applications.
Motorola is currently under contract with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to operate and maintain the U.S. DoD Iridium gateway and to develop and manufacture the security module for the Motorola Satellite Series 9505 portable telephone.
