In particular the DoD says it’s looking for a “predominantly automated” solution with role-based privileges capabilities to protect information on Microsoft operating systems as it interacts with collaborative software like SharePoint, Outlook, Exchange, and Lync.

It sounds as if the DoD is looking for an organic tool that prevents marking mistakes, inadvertent disclosure or sharing, while preventing unauthorized access. The department stresses the solution adhere to DoD National Security Agency and National Institute of Standards and Technology and have the ability to support up to 25,000+ concurrent users.

“The tool will require the user to ultimately define a security classification marking but might offer suggestions based upon dirty words or internal classification markings. The tool will perform all enforcement functions to prevent unauthorized access,” reads a .PDF, posted June 21.

According to the .PDF, the DoD wants to be able to apply what it calls "security attributes" to non-human readable formats, like binary and machine data, as well, in order for the system to be able to dictate which user can access what.

It makes sense the DoD is floating the idea of better classifying its data. The DoD already has a data classification program to conform to national security needs but it, along with other agencies in the federal space are always looking for new ways to efficiently analyze and safeguard data. An organization's ability to classify its data can be the cornerstone to a successful data security program.

The Pentagon has had issues protecting sensitive data in the past as well. Last fall a researcher discovered a treasure trove of web-monitoring data - 1.8 billion internet posts scraped from social media - belonging to both U.S. Central Command (Centcom) and U.S. Pacific Command (Pacom) on an exposed Amazon server.

Photo via U.S. Army's Flickr photostream, Creative Commons