Pentagon Officially Grants Security Approval For Apple's iOS Devices
May 18, 2013
The U.S. Department of Defense has finally granted the necessary security approval for Apple's iOS devices to be officially used within its communication networks.
Of course, this bit of good news, first reported by Bloomberg, is not unexpected. A week ago, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Defense Information Systems Agency suggested that an approval for Apple's iOS 6 was due this week.
Earlier this month, iOS 6 has been granted the FIPS 140-2 certification (Level 1) by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
And now, iOS 6 has been found to conform with the Pentagon's Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG). This brings Apple up to speed with Samsung and BlackBerry, the former's Android-based Knox security software and the latter's Z10 and Q10 devices having been approved a couple of weeks ago.
Apple commented on its entry to the U.S. military market, where it's set to compete with Samsung and BlackBerry, in a statement to AllThingsD:
“With iPhone and iPad being tested or deployed in almost every Fortune 500 company, Apple continues to scale across enterprise with nearly 30,000 companies globally developing and distributing iOS apps for corporate use by their employees,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told AllThingsD. “The FIPS 140-2 certification and STIG approval demonstrate our ongoing commitment to deliver a secure platform to our enterprise and government customers around the world who deploy iOS devices on their networks.”
