The U.S. Army Materiel Command‘s Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center has partnered with an Engility-led team to develop a universal encryptor for all communications devices used by the military.

The Army said Wednesday the Reprogrammable Single Chip Universal Encryptor or RESCUE aims to cancel out the need for numerous cryptographic engine cores to control cost and time spent in the transmission of classified information.

Transmission of sensitive data to and from the U.S. Army requires certification from the National Security Agency — a process that could get lengthy if NSA has to review the entire system each time, the service branch said.

“We expect a product review to take around six months, which is down from the standard time that can last up to about 24 months, more or less, to get a certification for a device,” said Project Lead Donald Coulter.

The Defense Department selected CERDEC to oversee the development of RESCUE since the center’s space and terrestrial communications directorate has the cryptographic research and development capabilities to develop the desired product, the Army said.

The development contract for RESCUE was awarded to Engility in Aug. 21, 2015.

“The contract award for the RESCUE development effort is public, and we will have all the rights with the explicit understanding that whoever wants to do a production contract or who wants to develop a new capability based on this technology — we have everything we need to either utilize it again in its current form, be able to tailor or modify it to reproduce these things,” said Rocio Bauer, CERDEC S&TCD cybersecurity and information assurance division tactical network protection branch chief.

The Army said CERDEC expects RESCUE to be NSA-certified and ready for use by September 2017, but stakeholders that plan to use the encryptor can reach out to CERDEC before then.

FBI Director James Comey told a House appropriations subcommittee Thursday the bureau has requested $9.50 billion in total appropriations to carry out law enforcement, national security and criminal justice operations in fiscal 2017.

Comey said in his written testimony the budget request includes $85.1 million to fund the bureau’s efforts to identify threats in cyberspace and share threat information with other agencies and the private sector.

“We are targeting the most dangerous malicious cyber activity: high-level intrusions by state-sponsored hackers and global cyber syndicates and the most prolific botnets,” he told the subcommittee.

He noted that cyber criminals attempt to access state and trade secrets, technology and government ideas on a daily basis as well as attack critical infrastructure assets.

The bureau also launched programs over the past year to increase collaboration and coordination between its cyber and counterintelligence divisions in a move to “identify, pursue and defeat hostile intelligence services using cyber means to penetrate or disrupt U.S. government entities or economic interests,” according to Comey.

The FBI has issued a warning about a series of hacking activities against U.S. networks that it believes are conducted by sympathizers of the Islamic State militant group, Motherboard reported Tuesday.

Joseph Cox writes the publication obtained an FBI document that states certain hackers have defaced websites, launched denial-of-service attacks and leaked personal information over the past two years “to spread pro-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant propaganda and to incite violence against the United States and the West.”

The document identified online groups such as the Caliphate Cyber Army, Islamic Cyber Army and Elite Islamic State Hackers, the report said.

According to the report, the groups use what the FBI calls unsophisticated methods of attack — such as structured query language injection, cross-site scripting and social engineering – which are meant to exploit website vulnerabilities and steal account credentials.

Cox reports the bureau recommends that users enable automated software updates, disable computer macros and adopt two-factor authentication to help prevent the spread of attacks.