NEW YORK, April 9, 2020 ‒ Wickr, Inc., the secure collaboration platform known for its robust end-to-end encryption and the ability to securely operate on Zero Trust Networks (ZTN), announced today the company was awarded a strategic financing contract from the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) AFVentures Strategic Financing (STRATFI) program. Air Force personnel will be able to securely communicate anywhere in the world, without the risk of being breached or hacked.
USAF refers to the military’s self hosted instance as Wickr RAM, which is a self-hosted end-to-end encrypted collaboration platform deployed to address the requirements to serve Recall, Alert, and Messaging needs. Wickr RAM is a highly scalable version of Wickr Enterprise with full administrative and compliance controls enabled to meet Department of Defense (DOD) security requirements while providing an easy to use solution for zero trust, encrypted messaging, audio and video calling with screen share, large file transfers, and secure storage. All features use the exact same encryption, which is compliant with For Official Use Only (FOUO) document designation, PII, and higher levels of security.
With an increased effort to work with small businesses, USAF recently introduced AFVentures as the collaboration between the Air Force Acquisition, AFWERX, and the Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program to fund critical technologies for the warfighter. Thus far, the umbrella organization has identified 21 companies, including Wickr, who are tentatively selected to receive part of a combined $550m in Strategic Financing (STRATFI) contracts as part of the initiative.
“With the unique ability to enforce security policies, active directory integration for syncing users and groups, as well as compliance logging for records retention requirements, Wickr is the only scalable option to manage this enormous task,” said Joel Wallenstrom, CEO of Wickr. “Wickr has a longstanding partnership with the DOD and we are honored to be chosen to protect USAF here and abroad.”
Earlier this year, Wickr received the Authorization To Operate (ATO) on DOD communication networks approved for FOUO documents on government issued and personal devices. As part of the ATO evaluation, Wickr’s secure collaboration platform was put through a rigorous vetting of the technology, which included the installation of Wickr Enterprise in Amazon’s FedRAMP approved AWS GovCloud, and through testing against the Risk Management Framework (RMF) to ensure this central deployment opened to the entire DOD, is hardened to U.S. Department of Defense standards.
“Wickr is honored to provide service members and coalition partners with a compliant collaboration service which includes global network access hardened to DOD standards. The system is both easy to use and familiar to new service members, allowing our military to modernize enterprise access and data sharing while removing the data risks that come from shadow IT endemic to less secure messaging systems.” said Dan Skinner, Head of Federal Operations
To learn more about Wickr RAM, visit https://wickr.com/secure-communication-for-the-military/
About Wickr:
Wickr’s mission is to secure the world’s most critical communications. Wickr provides the highest standard of encryption trusted by millions worldwide. In the workplace and out in the field, Wickr enables end users to communicate securely and protect their privacy while providing IT organizations the administrative controls needed to deploy at scale and provides flexible options and controls for information governance and compliance for regulated industries. To learn more, visit www.wickr.com.
About AFWERX:
Established in 2017 by the Secretary of the Air Force and reporting to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, AFWERX is a catalyst for agile Air Force engagement across industry, academia and non-traditional contributors to create transformative opportunities and foster an Air Force culture of innovation. The core mission of AFWERX is to improve Air Force capabilities by connecting innovators, simplifying technology transfer and accelerating results. For more information on AFWERX, visit https://www.afwerx.af.mil/.
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Danielle OstrovskyHi-Touch PR
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Ostrovsky@Hi-TouchPR.com
