NES Associates
Ensuring a Compliant and Secure Organization

"Today’s companies must wage a creative campaign on multiple fronts to maintain a level of trust with their clients,” says Andy Gomer, CEO, NES Associates. Organizations face an increasingly sophisticated adversary, which requires them to keep pace with technology while internalizing the impact of operations and also focusing on customer service.

To tackle advanced attackers, organizations require quality staff training or up-to-date technologies. The skill sets and training required by technicians today diverges noticeably from those of the typical system or network administrator who are turning to highly-specialized firms like NES. The company offers third-party auditing, diagnostics, and engineering expertise that incorporates a contemporary awareness of today’s threats. The company’s core competency is telecommunications and network engineering, and the associated Cyber Security components that are needed to secure these networks.

“Like most IT related development activities, the work we do in bandwidth optimization starts with understanding our customers’ requirements, their current as-built configurations, and the layout and architecture of their corporate facilities,” points out Gomer. NES looks at Cyber Security as a complete package that encompasses not only technical and policy disciplines, but operational disciplines as well. NES’ ability to provide complete Cyber Security is well documented across its client base at DLA, the Army and DISA on massive projects like the Joint Regional Security Stack (JRSS) in support of the Joint Information Environment (JIE). And, its comprehensive approach was used to establish the Concept of Operations (CONOPs) and further applied to the engineering, configuration and implementation of the DoD’s next generation security stack that will allow the Army to reduce its attack surface from over 400 points of presence to 25.

For instance, “we designed and implemented a private wide area network for DCMA (Defense Contract Management Agency) that reduced their internet attack surface, consolidated their data center operations and reduced the number of data circuits used by the Agency,” says Gomer.

The cost savings for DCMA have been significant–network consolidation reduced their annual telecommunications costs by 70 percent and the reduction in facility and O&M costs gained through reducing their data center footprint was comparable. DCMA has been able to easily assimilate new requirements and adopt new technologies because their fundamental infrastructure was standardized, well documented, and centrally managed. When they decided to take advantage of IP-VPN services (aka MPLS) offered by federal telecommunications contracts, they were in a position to make the change easily which was a part of the scheduled network upgrade program. Following the “Customer Always” philosophy, NES has established itself as one of the premier Telecommunications, Network Engineering and Cyber Security companies in the industry. Apart from Cyber Security the company plans to invest in secure mobility by supporting partners in the area of unmanned vehicle control. “Since our IT roots are in the DOD, we have emphasized the investment that Federal Government has made in Cyber Security,” says Gomer. The company’s near term plan is to deploy an unclassified interpretation of TTPs (Tools, Tactics, and Procedures) into commercial markets to help them become more secure, and to adopt a more structured approach to their Cyber Security efforts.”

The work we do in bandwidth optimization starts with understanding our customers’ requirements

Moving forward, Gomer foresees Cyber Security as a problem which is here to stay. “NES wants to help industries that aren’t in the Government Cyber Security “clique” and employ TTPs that will help them fortify their posture cost-effectively by leveraging the Government’s investment,” concludes Gomer.