Platform-agnostic capability validates and translates classification metadata across allied military and enterprise systems, enabling interoperability with current and evolving NATO and Five Eyes standards.
Janusnet, an Australian software company specializing in data-centric security, today introduced Janusnet Accord, an enterprise metadata interoperability capability designed to keep security classification and releasability information intact, trustworthy and machine-readable as data moves between systems, networks, and allied partners.
As allied militaries, defense enterprises and national security agencies implement Zero Trust and Data-Centric Security (DCS) initiatives, machine-readable metadata is critical to automate policy decisions. Yet, security labels created in one system can become difficult to interpret, verify or trust when data moves within environments or across network boundaries and national borders. In a world where Defense capabilities rely increasingly heavily on coalition operations, interoperability matters.
Janusnet Accord addresses this interoperability challenge by validating, translating, and standardizing security metadata across legacy, existing and new architectures. This enables downstream systems to enforce policy decisions based on authoritative, trusted metadata.
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As the enterprise-wide metadata authority, Janusnet Accord addresses three key areas of risk in data-centric security initiatives:
- Program risk: where interoperability failures cause delays, rework, and cost overruns.
- Security risk: where controls act on incomplete or ambiguous classification information.
- Operational risk: where delays in sharing information can impact mission outcomes.
Designed for the multilateral environments in which defense organizations operate, including AUKUS information-sharing arrangements and NATO and Five Eyes interoperability standards such as Standardization Agreements (STANAG) and Allied Communication Publication 240 (ACP 240), Janusnet Accord addresses common points of metadata breakdown – including endpoints, applications, data repositories, gateways and cross-domain solutions – to provide trusted attributes to downstream access control and policy enforcement systems.
Rather than bundling classification, decision-making, and enforcement into a single stack, Janusnet Accord focuses specifically on ensuring the metadata driving those decisions is accurate, consistent, and trustworthy while leaving enforcement to the systems already responsible for it. The platform-agnostic solution can be deployed centrally or close to where data is created and used in cloud, hybrid, disconnected, and degraded environments, allowing incremental adoption and augmentation of existing systems without wholesale replacement of existing infrastructure.
Greg Colla, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Janusnet, says, “Defense agencies have told us their critical pain point isn’t a lack of security tooling or classification labels – it’s interoperability. Systems can represent the same security classification differently, meaning a document stored across multiple systems can be handled inconsistently by the same downstream control. Janusnet Accord normalizes classification metadata so existing controls can consistently operate on the intended classification, regardless of the originating system. It provides a practical, staged approach to improving security maturity and a roadmap to the implementation of data-centric security standards while reducing operational and program risk today.”
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