Communication Security Group
Enabling Secure Communications in Zero Trust Environments

Office environments will not be the same in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, where the notion of working remotely or from home has been largely embraced by organizations, both public and private. With more staff “teleworking”, companies must be aware of how a decentralized workforce with a communication infrastructure primarily designed to support an on-premise workforce can increase the risks that organization will face. “There are many critical vulnerabilities inherent with cell phones and cellular networks that put an organization’s privacy and confidentiality at risk. Understanding and preventing these risks is critical to protecting their business, employees, clients, and customers,” says Adam Such II, President and COO of Communication Security Group Inc. (CSG), a global leader and innovator in secure mobility.

With millions of employees now working from home, experts are drawing attention to a new wave of cyberattacks, focusing on everything from VPNs and public internet networks to end-user hardware including laptops and cellular devices. Even before Covid-19 changed the work landscape, bad actors ranging from cybercriminals to corporate espionage and even state-sponsored hackers were actively targeting vulnerabilities for their own ends. “The current global health emergency has greatly increased the volume of these activities, their targets and the cost of failure,” explains Such.

For example, teams unfamiliar with working from home may decide to use consumer “freemium” messaging tools, unaware of the risks. “Such apps do not offer anywhere near the level of encryption or security required by the enterprise, with call spoofing, hacking and eavesdropping all too common,” says Such. With freemium consumer messaging platforms, the user is the product, and organizations should read the app’s privacy terms before deciding how comfortable they are exposing their metadata to the app makers and their partners. It is for these reasons that analysts hold that a conversation over a freemium consumer app should be considered to be happening in a public space. As Such explains, even putting aside the various security issues, “these apps create a shadow IT, beyond management control. Anything that is shared over them is outside the organization’s purview, with no audit, archive or authentication functionality. This can create problems ranging from continuity and efficiency to regulatory compliance issues.”

Born out of government use and developed for the rigors of zero-trust environments, Cellcrypt by CSG is a secure communication platform trusted by governments and enterprise worldwide. The platform provides the highest level of protection against call and message interception, via a consumer-friendly app that can be used on virtually any off-the-shelf smartphone and tablet running on iOS, Android, and Blackberry. Designed with certified Suite B encryption and government-grade assurance, Cellcrypt is available for Windows and macOS, ensuring seamless, secure communication via desktops and laptops. The platform’s military-grade, end-to-end encryption ensures the complete confidentiality and authenticity of voice calls, messages and file sharing across any and all networks. “Cellcrypt is used to protect the most sensitive information at the highest levels of government, intelligence and military in four out of the Five Eyes (FVEY) intelligence alliance countries,” asserts Such. The platform works across any network (i.e. 2G EDGE, 3G, 4G, LTE, CDMA, 5G, SAT, WiFi, Tac Comms) and is transport and carrier agnostic. With assured message delivery and minimal bandwidth utilization, the company empowers secure organizational mobility.

Cellcrypt’s fully enterprise-ready set of solutions can be integrated into existing infrastructure without the need for additional hardware. Employees can simply download the app for immediate secure voice and message; but more than that, they can access instant conference calling which enables organizations to schedule mobile and desktop conference calling with automatic email invites, requiring no third-party administrator permissions or passwords.

Cellcrypt’s Voice Gateway interfaces to a wide range of digital PBXs to allow secure calls between mobile users and desk phones, even allowing use of existing extension number directories. Cellcrypt is also fully compatible with XMPP and Cisco Jabber – VoIP + Jabber messaging. As an on-premise or cloud-hosted solution, Cellcrypt’s Private Switch allows organizations to maintain the confidentiality of user, device, and call details by providing them with complete control of all communications and related metadata via a web-based management console with access restricted to authorized users. The company also leverages APIs, allowing for further integration with IT infrastructure, putting the enterprise back in control of their communications.

We only provide to verified commercial and government enterprises to ensure the tool is only placed in the right hands

“Cellcrypt is enterprise-ready, providing secure end-to-end encryption across existing hardware, and we only work with verified commercial and government enterprises to ensure the tool is only placed in the right hands,” says Such. The company has clients across a huge range of verticals, including military, defense, energy, banking, telephony, infrastructure and mining, and expects this diversification to continue as awareness of the threats grows. Even away from Covid-19, Cellcrypt envisions growth in areas such as healthcare, where regulatory compliance will continue to drive the proliferation of secure instant communication. From a product standpoint, the company will soon launch Cellcrypt Federal, which offers unprecedented features, scalability, interoperability and resilience in an NIAP certified structure for classified or protected communications. The system can be owned and operated entirely by the customer, giving them full control of all aspects of their data. The company is also in the process of launching solutions around IoT, with APIs that provide encryption of data in motion and empowers a secure common data fabric. This represents a significant area of growth as organizations realize the risk presented by the connectivity of automobiles, healthcare equipment, industrial machinery and so much more. Cellcrypt’s secure APIs will offer not just the ability to protect data in transit but also enable secure voice, message, video and attachment sharing across networks.

Keeping compliance in mind, Cellcrypt offers a regulatory archive add-on module for companies to store their communications in a secure manner. “Unlike the competition, Cellcrypt is NIAP (National Information Assurance Partnership) certified, not just between cell phones, but also with NIAP-approved servers and NIAP-validated SIP services,” says Such. The platform is certified to the FIPS 140-2 standard, approved by the US National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST).

While Cellcrypt’s roadmap looks promising, the company’s current focus is on supporting government agencies and helping commercial enterprises maintain business continuity during the global health emergency. “With the spread of Covid-19, we are seeing a substantial need for companies to rapidly enable secure teleworking for their employees. We are proud to be proactively supporting businesses and agencies affected by the health emergency, with unparalleled discounts on licenses and full enterprise solutions. Businesses needing to transition to telework will be able to employ Cellcrypt rapidly to lessen the strain, costs, and vulnerabilities during this emergency and beyond,” concludes Such.