Design and assurance strategy for the NRL Pump

Abstract

The NRL Pump forwards messages from a low level system to a high level system and monitors the timing of acknowledgments from the high level system to minimize leaks. It is the keystone to a proposed architecture that uses specialized high assurance devices to separate data at different security levels. We describe the software design and assurance argument strategy for this device, the Network NRL Pump, which can be used in any multilevel secure distributed architecture. We have completed the system requirements and logical design of a prototype pump and are working on its physical design.