NSWC IHD COMSEC Team Reduce Software Upgrade Time Almost 90% Using CHIMERA, Win DON Information Superiority Excellence Award, NAVIFOR Big Ideas Challenge

NSWC IHD COMSEC Team Reduce Software Upgrade Time Almost 90% Using CHIMERA, Win DON Information Superiority Excellence Award, NAVIFOR Big Ideas Challenge

By NSWC IHD Public Affairs

The Communications Security (COMSEC) team at Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division (NSWC IHD) were recently honored with two awards: the Department of the Navy's (DON) Information Superiority Excellence Award for Innovation, presented May 11 at the 2026 DON Digital Warfighting Symposium East in Norfolk, Virginia; and the Advancing Information Warfare (IW) Warfighting Capabilities category of the Naval Information Forces' (NAVINFOR) Big Ideas Challenge (BIC).

The team improved equipment upgrade efficiency through implementing Common High-Assurance Internet Protocol Encryptor (HAIPE) Interoperable Manager for Efficient Remote Administration (CHIMERA), which reduced overall device upgrade time at the command by 89% and enabled nine devices to be updated in the same amount of time it previously took to complete one.

"This groundbreaking improvement translates to massive time and cost savings, freeing up valuable resources and avoiding significant expenses compared to alternative solutions," said NSWC IHD Security Division Director Bill Gregor. "Their initiative has expedited the deployment of critical security upgrades, strengthened cybersecurity, improved operational readiness and provided a demonstrable competitive advantage to the Navy."

Software upgrades are required for maintaining network encryption security against emerging threats. CHIMERA quickly identifies and remedies those network threats and outages to provide stakeholders maximum awareness over the entire cryptographic network from a single host, acting as a dashboard for configuration of National Security Agency (NSA) Type-1 defensive networking products that protect both unclassified and classified networks/assets. The CHIMERA dashboard provides a common user interface for remotely managing unique encryptor families, simplifying the process for users and reducing overall costs to provide situational awareness of the entire cryptographic network from a single host.

Compared to similar solutions, NSWC IHD's implementation of CHIMERA for COMSEC software management will save the DON $10,000 per license. At NSWC IHD alone, the Navy will save $50,000.

"The command can rapidly deploy faster, more frequent upgrades and critical security patches to strengthen cybersecurity and proactively mitigate emerging vulnerabilities using CHIMERA," said NSWC IHD Commanding Officer Capt. Steve Duba. "The use of CHIMERA represents advancement in the COMSEC field, shifting the paradigm from a reactive to a proactive security posture."

NSWC IHD validated CHIMERA as the Navy's optimal solution for COMSEC management through innovative testing and quantitative analysis. A trial CHIMERA software was also obtained by the team at no cost.

The DON Information Superiority Excellence Awards program is the Navy's most prestigious and longest running award program recognizing excellence in Information Superiority and Digital Warfighting.

NAVINFOR's BIC is a "Shark Tank" style competition where Sailors and civilians present solutions to IW challenges to the NAVINFOR commander and winners can implement ideas at-scale.

NSWC IHD - a field activity of the Naval Sea Systems Command and part of the Navy's Science and Engineering Establishment - is the leader in ordnance, energetics, and EOD solutions. The Division focuses on energetics research, development, testing, evaluation, in-service support, manufacturing and disposal; and provides warfighters solutions to detect, locate, access, identify, render safe, recover, exploit and dispose of explosive ordnance threats.