Pulse Secure certified for U.S. Department of Defence Unified Capabilities Approved Products List

Pulse Secure, a provider of secure access solutions has announced that Pulse Connect Secure 8.2 and Pulse Policy Secure 5.3 on PSA-Series appliances have been certified for inclusion on The U.S. Department of Defence DoD Unified Capabilities (UC) Approved Products List (APL).

Highest levels of security

The certification process is the responsibility of the Defence Information Systems Agency (DISA) Unified Capabilities Certification Office (UCCO). Pulse Secure in co-operation with Tachyon Dynamics, a DoD UC APL consulting company, successfully completed certification at the approved distributed testing centre at the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) at Fort Huachuca near Sierra Vista, Arizona, USA.

To ensure the highest levels of security, DoD customers can purchase only unified-capabilities–related equipment, both hardware and software, that has been certified to verify that the system complies with and is configured consistently with the DISA Field Security Office (FSO) Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG).

Rigorous certified testing

“Rigorous and independently certified testing processes such as UC/APL are essential to provide the assurance that systems meet the highest levels of security.” Said Prakash Mana, Head of Product for Pulse Secure. “We would like to thank the team at Tachyon Dynamics for all their hard work during this process and this new certification joins our long-standing commitment to government security standards.”

UC APL certifications testing consists of interoperability (IO) and information assurance (IA) testing which amongst an extensive list of controls includes proper user privilege assignment and restrictions, password policies such as complex passwords and the proper treatment of inactive accounts, password expiration, password reuse and account lockout along with file protections, and auditing and logging capabilities.  This detailed testing, which can take up to a year to complete, ensures any equipment installed within the DoD complies with the complex requirements developed by the DoD.