Titus at CWIX – demonstrated interoperability with NATO STANAGs 4774 and 4778
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Friday, January 31st, 2020 
The Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation, eXamination eXercise (CWIX) is an annual NATO event focused on interoperability for the NATO Alliance. The goal is to ensure that NATO and its partner nations can work seamlessly together, especially in a mission context.
CWIX includes several focus areas, but the most relevant to Titus is Data Centric Security (DCS). DCS is concerned with flexible and efficient information sharing capabilities that focuses on securing access to the data itself, rather than focusing on network perimeter defense.
For the CWIX exercise phase, NATO and partner nations sponsor interoperability capabilities that they want to see demonstrated. These capabilities might be implemented by the national sponsors themselves, or by a partner vendor, such as Titus.
I recently attended the CWIX 2020 Main Planning Conference (MPC) in Potsdam, Germany, an event where NATO and partner members coordinate interoperability testing for the execution phase. Titus has been working closely with NATO and several NATO member nations to develop capabilities that support the recently ratified STANAGs 4774 and 4778.
These STANAGs define the syntax for Confidentiality Labels, and how a Confidentiality Label is bound to the data. What does that mean? These STANAGs require that all NATO related documents and emails contain metadata in a specific format. Titus has been the undisputed leader in applying customizable metadata for almost two decades, making it a perfect fit.
At CWIX 2019, Titus demonstrated the ability to attach and bind STANAG 4774 compliant labels to emails in Titus Message Classification. Working with systems in the NATO Communications and Information Agency, German, Belgian, and Canadian networks, we were able to send emails with the appropriate labels and have them correctly interpreted on the receiving end.
In addition, when replying to, or forwarding those emails, the STANAG labels are used to maintain suitable classification. This demonstrates how Titus help ensure the seamless transmission of data in a mission context, with the added assurance of appropriate security at the data level.
Looking forward to CWIX 2020, the recent MPC gave us a chance to connect with interested nations and other vendors to determine what kinds of capabilities would be of interest for testing. Titus plans to bring a STANAG 4774 and 4778 compliant version of Titus Classification for Office to CWIX 2020, which gives Titus the ability to demonstrate seamless, automatic attachment and binding of STANAG 4774 labels to Office documents at creation.
