SIM - Secure Instant Messaging and Chat Based Upon Microsoft Live Communication Server

The real-time nature of Instant Messaging (IM) / Chat solutions are very attractive to organisations. However, without critical features such as archiving and protective marking, IM / Chat creates the additional risks of information leakage and of unauthorised individuals compromising message security. SIM from Boldon James provides the required critical features including user authorisation, non-repudiation, and conversation history and archiving.

About SIM

Based on Microsoft’s Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) Live Communication Server (LCS), SIM’s principal function is to provide an enhanced level of information assurance for IM / Chat conversations. It achieves this through the addition of protective marking for Chat Rooms and security clearance / access checks for users to ensure they can only see and enter a room for which they have the appropriate security clearance. SIM also enables multi-level conversation archiving and auditing, particularly relevant when complying with Government storage and retrieval

A screenshot of the SIM User Interface  presenting rooms a user is cleared to enter

Key Features

• User Authentication - SIM uses optional smart cards and passwords as well as Windows authenticated log-ons to ensure users are who they claim to be.
• Security Labelling and Clearance Control - All Chat Rooms have a protective classification mark and all users have a security clearance. Users are therefore only able to see and enter room sessions for which they are cleared.
• Zero-Footprint Web Client Interface - SIM uses a web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, as its client interface, therefore, it does not require any pre-loaded applications or dynamic downloads before it can be used. 
• Lockable Chat Rooms - All rooms can be ‘locked’ preventing other cleared but unwanted individuals joining.
• Guest Invitations - Chat Room participants can ‘invite’ a non-cleared guest into the room to join the conversation, for example to give their expertise on meteorological reports. Whilst the guest is in the room, the identities of all the other participants are hidden from the guest’s view, and the room’s classification is lowered appropriately. The guests also cannot see the conversation prior to them joining the room.
• Guest Conversation Filtering - When a guest of a lower clearance level is in the Chat Room, the other members can see that they are now operating at a lower clearance level.
• Conversation Persistence - When a new cleared attendee joins a Chat Room session, they can use the ‘scroll-back’ facility to easily see the full conversation’s history, allowing them quickly to catch-up.
• Secure IM Booths - If there are only two participants, SIM allows for these individuals to move into a Secure Booth for one-to-one conversation through the IM Booth facility.
• Secure Archive and Audit - The full conversation from Chat Rooms and Secure IM Booths can be archived to an SQL server database. The archive contains the full conversation history as well as the participants, leavers and joiners, and all entries are date and time-stamped for ease of retrieval and audit trails.

The SIM chat user interface

Key Benefits

• Provides the critical information assurance features to mitigate the risks associated with IM / Chat
• User-friendly security features enable conversation privacy
• Retains a complete archive to ensure legislative compliance or to store classified information exchanges
• Simple intuitive web interface that is easy, fast and cost-effective to deploy
• Microsoft COTS platform for improved performance, reliability and a low total cost of ownership.

Further information

A PDF version of this information is available in our reference library. Alternatively please contact us with your questions