France's General Directorate for Armament (DGA) has awarded Airbus (OTC: EADSY), through its subsidiary Airbus Cybersecurity SAS, a 25-year contract called PARACOM to supply cybersecurity gateways for the networks of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces and Veterans' Affairs.

The contract, awarded following a competitive tender, covers the end-to-end design, development, production, and long-term operational maintenance of the gateways. The gateways will enable secure, filtered data exchanges between networks and information systems with different levels of classification, and will be certified to cover data exchanges between "secret" and "unclassified" levels.

The gateways will be deployed across the armed forces and the directorates and departments of the Ministry. They will be available in multiple versions, including configurations for integration into a data center rack, deployment in a command post, and use in tactical environments such as surface vessels, submarines, aircraft, helicopters, drones, armored vehicles, and land vehicles.

"This gateway strengthens the digital shield the French Armed Forces rely on to execute their missions," said François Lombard, Director of Connected Intelligence at Airbus Defence and Space. "Since 2013, we have supplied French land forces with gateway solutions."