DHS’s New Mobile App Playbook

By Tomas O’Keefe, Consultant

Security is one of the biggest hurdles for mobility in government, but some recent work by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) might make this challenge a little less daunting for federal agencies.

DHS has been working on a mobile app playbook to help agencies develop secure mobile applications and follow a streamlined process to introduce those apps into agencies’ mobile environments. Sound familiar? That’s because it’s a riff on the federal CIO’s Digital Playbook, suggesting a baseline for mobile app development and appropriate milestones to ensure the final application isn’t riddled with errors.

DHS has been a pioneer in securing the mobile workspace for the last few years. You might be familiar with DHS’ Car Wash process, a continuous pen-testing and design-verifying security application that vets mobile apps as they’re developed. Car Wash is available to all federal agencies (and even private sector mobile app developers), and DHS is continuing the trend of advancing the security of mobile environments with the mobile app playbook.

DHS is also working with the General Services Administration (GSA) to onboard mobile security vendors to GSA 70 schedules at a more rapid pace, opening the door to game-changing mobile security technologies that can be used by federal departments.

But DHS continues to face one big challenge when it comes to the mobile app playbook and the Car Wash process: scalability. Much of the onus to vet apps continues to fall on the DHS Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), which simply isn’t sustainable. DHS will look to technologies that help reduce the OCIO’s workload and reduce the time to get best-of-breed technologies to market. Technology manufacturers and resellers that can help DHS streamline resource-intensive processes will be in high demand.

If you have a mobility play, or can help DHS scale its mobility services more effectively across the rest of government, immixGroup can help you reduce your time to market. Reach out to our Market Intelligence team to help you with your mobility play across federal agencies today.