At last month’s DoDIIS Worldwide conference, the defense and intelligence community convened with industry to discuss how to support the warfighter at machine speed. The conference covered several mission imperatives, all ultimately impacting how fast the warfighter gets the right data. As Lt. Gen. James Adams, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), said in his address, “We have built an enterprise that is excellent at collecting. We must now build one that is exceptional at understanding, at speed, and under pressure.”
That understanding must happen wherever the mission is- on a flight line, at a forward operating base, etc. Because of that, secure iOS® & iPadOS® mobility in classified environments and tactical mission networks is no longer a nice to have but rather a mission requirement. What most attendees didn’t hear is how Owl Cyber Defense® and our partners are already closing that classified mobility gap. In an executive briefing, the panel of experts walked through an approach that brings the familiar iOS and iPadOS experience into the most restricted mission environments, securely, compliantly, and at mission speed.
The approach? Start with the device: unmodified, commercial iOS and iPadOS hardware and software, deployed in Highly Restricted Network (HRN) mode so it never reconnects to a public cloud once provisioned. From there, harden it through integrated mobile device management, encrypted data-at-rest protection, a secure cross-domain gateway for ongoing updates, and a consistent cloud architecture from the lowest impact level through top secret, all delivered through a single contracting vehicle.
DIA’s leadership was clear about what winning the current fight requires: security that is never an afterthought, content at machine speed, and decision advantage measured in minutes. Here’s how a comprehensive approach to classified mobility by Owl and our partners directly addresses some of DIA’s most pressing requirements:
Mission Requirement One: Zero Trust as the Baseline
Director Adams named zero trust as one of six capabilities DIA needs from industry, calling it “the baseline for every DIA partnership” and specifying exactly what mature implementation means: “continuous verification of users, devices, and data flows,” continuous authorization grounded in real-time risk monitoring, security controls that adapt as threats change, and “encryption that protects information without slowing operations”. Admiral Frank M. Bradley, Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command went further, framing zero trust not as an IT checkbox but as tradecraft, illustrating it through Virginia Hall’s WWII spy network, where every contact was re-authenticated, nothing was trusted by default, and access was granted strictly on demonstrated need. That kind of continuous verification is also what the Intelligence Community (IC) CIO’s cybersecurity oversight and optimization priority calls for: security built into the architecture from the start, not layered on afterward.
The panel’s solution follows those same instincts. Once a device is provisioned in HRN mode, it permanently loses its connection to the public cloud, closing off the biggest backdoor. Mobile threat defense and active hardening run continuously on the device itself, enabling real-time risk monitoring instead of periodic checks. The secure gateway implements zero trust at the cross-domain boundary required for iOS and iPadOS update service traffic. Rather than granting the device implicit trust to reach servers directly, the gateway mediates that path as a broker with independent verification on each leg of the transfer.
Mission Requirement Two: App Development That Outpaces the Threat
Edacheril “E.P.” Mathew, Deputy CIO, DIA, put it bluntly: commercial apps ship in weeks, but “inside the fence” they take two to three years, meaning the tools warfighters rely on are outdated before they arrive – something that we wouldn’t accept on our personal devices and that we shouldn’t accept for the warfighter. Scott Orton, CEO of Owl Cyber Defense, made a similar point from the industry side: custom government solutions tend to fall behind and simply can’t match the pace of commercial-grade development.
The panel’s answer? A foundation that enables understanding at speed without compromising security, closing the exact gaps leaders were describing. A secure gateway facilitates secure over-the-air (OTA) updates at mission speed without a break in operational security to keep iPhones® and iPads® protected, compliant, and mission-ready. Mobile device management lets users build and load their own applications directly instead of waiting years for a program of record. And the cloud architecture underneath it all runs processing at lower classification levels before escalating results to the highest ones, so speed never gets lost the moment data has to move to a more restricted environment, thus enabling speed-at-scale. That approach also lines up with two more IC CIO priorities at once: acquisition efficiency, since the whole solution is delivered through a single contracting vehicle at commercial pace and cost, and partner integration, since no single company built this alone.
Mission Requirement Three: AI That Can Actually Be Trusted at the Edge
Director Adams pointed to DIA’s own tools, which already “cut analyst search time from hours to minutes,” as proof AI-driven decision advantage is real, not theoretical Maj. Gen. Robert Kinney, DIA’s Chief AI Officer, laid out where that advantage is headed next: “building agents, and then agents-with-agents,” picturing a collection management agent coordinating directly with operations, logistics, and planning agents across a combatant command. Getting that speed and coordination into the field means AI must run wherever the warfighter is, on the device in their hand, even when that device has no connection back to the cloud.
The panel’s solution answers the AI requirements from two directions: the device and the cloud infrastructure behind it. On-device AI, including real-time translation, runs directly on the iPhone® or iPad®, even fully offline with no reach-back to the cloud. Behind it, a consistent cloud architecture spans every classification level using identical infrastructure throughout, letting heavier AI processing happen at lower, faster levels before results escalate upward, without rebuilding or reaccrediting anything along the way. Together, that’s a workflow experience that actually keeps pace with analysts, built on a foundational architecture consistent enough to run the same way at every classification level.
One Solution, Every Requirement
DIA’s own leadership reiterated the point from the mainstage: solving complex problems, like securely enabling iOS and iPadOS in closed enclaves, takes industry partners working together to create comprehensive, adaptable, secure, AI-enabled solutions- and that’s exactly what Owl and our partners are doing with our breakthrough approach to enabling secure iOS & iPadOS in classified environments. Ready to learn more? Contact our team.
Want to see how the secure gateway component of this solution, Owl’s XD Tyton, secures cross-domain updates for classified mobility? Download our FAQ document to learn more about XD Tyton.
Quotes and remarks from Lt. Gen. James Adams, Edacheril “E.P.” Mathew, and Adm. Frank Bradley are drawn from publicly recorded sessions at the 2026 DoDIIS Worldwide Conference, hosted by DIA and archived via DVIDS. Quotes from industry panelists are drawn from a recorded executive briefing on classified mobility held during the same conference. All quotes may have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
iPhone, iPad, iOS, and iPadOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Owl Cyber Defense is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Inc.
