Case Study

NIAP-Certified Network Appliance

Zero code to government certification.

24 months. 4 protection profiles.

The Challenge

Rapid development of a certifiable security appliance

Technical requirements

VPN GATEWAY

IPsec tunnels with certificate management

FIREWALL

Stateful traffic filtering and NAT

IPS

Real-time intrusion prevention

NIAP READY

Government certification from day one

Our approach

SECURITY-FIRST ARCHITECTURE

Custom restricted shell in C11. Privilege separation. FIPS cryptography.

SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

IPsec, IDS, Firewall. Complex subsystems working as one.

CERTIFICATION COORDINATION

Interface with third-party evaluation lab. Navigate complex requirements.

CLIENT HANDOFF

Knowledge transfer. Documentation. Seamless transition to completion.

Execution timeline

WEEKS 1-18: CORE DEVELOPMENT

ISE Lead

Foundational architecture. Security subsystems. Management interface.

MONTHS 6-18: CLIENT INTEGRATION

Gradual Handoff

Feature expansion. Testing. Documentation. Knowledge transfer.

MONTHS 18-24: NIAP CERTIFICATION

Client Managed

Coordination with evaluation lab. Complex requirements alignment. Certification achieved.

Technical implementation

Custom Restricted Shell

C11

16K+ lines. Privilege separation. Sandboxed execution. SUID root with controls.

Cryptographic Foundation

FIPS 140-3

Certificate lifecycle. PKI operations. X.509 validation. CRL processing.

Network Security Stack

Multi-layer

IPsec VPN. Stateful firewall. IPS engine. Traffic analysis. Protocol inspection.

Hypervisor Integration

Virtual appliance

A/B partitions. Trusted firmware updates. Runtime integrity. Automated monitoring.

Results

LINES OF CODE

PROTECTION PROFILES

WEEKS TO CORE

check

NIAP CERTIFIED

NIAP certification scope

NETWORK DEVICE

Baseline security requirements for network infrastructure.

STATEFUL FIREWALL

Traffic filtering with connection state tracking.

INTRUSION PREVENTION

Real-time threat detection and mitigation.

VPN GATEWAY

Secure tunnel establishment and management.

Client Achievement

Market-ready product with government certification

Capabilities showcased

SYSTEMS PROGRAMMING

Advanced C programming. Memory management. Privilege separation. Process isolation.

SECURITY ENGINEERING

Cryptographic implementation. PKI operations. FIPS compliance. Threat modeling.

INTEGRATION MASTERY

Complex subsystem orchestration. Third-party component integration. API design.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE

Common Criteria methodology. NIAP processes. Documentation standards. Testing rigor.