Military Networks Will Be Ready For iPad, iPhone Use In About Two Weeks, Says Pentagon

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armyipad

You may remember a post I wrote a while back about the Pentagon’s plan to get mobile devices working on military networks, and how we were able to ascertain that yes, they were working on testing iPhones and iPads and no, they were not planning on jettisoning support for Blackberry devices.

According to Spencer Ackerman at Wired today, iPads will finally have passed the rigorous security review set out by the US Military at the Pentagon in about two weeks, allowing the Apple-powered mobile devices onto the military networks. The Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs) for BlackBerry 10 devices and Playbook tablets, along with those for Samsung’s Knox Android phone, have already been released.

“We expect to release the iOS STIG sometime in the next two weeks,” Air Force Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, a Pentagon spokesman, told Wired.

The Pentagon is still looking at a few issues, most notably how iOS devices actually lock down sensitive data, said Pickart, but it has issued an interim STIG for iOS 6, which could mean that the few issues aren’t too big of a deal. Macbooks and Apple desktop Macs are still not cleared for the military networks, however.

What the STIG clears the way for, though, is for procurement groups within the US Military to submit purchase orders for any mobile devices it would like to buy for its projects and staff members, including Apple mobile devices like the iPhone or iPad.

Cult of Mac has contacted spokesman Lt Col. Pickard for independent confirmation, but has not yet received a response.

Source: Wired
Image: Wired

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