Cybersecurity for the Internet of Things (IoT)

Cybersecurity research currently underway at NSA was noted in a Nextgov.com article entitled “How the Federal Government Is Attempting to Protect the Internet of Things”. See the full article at http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2015/11/how-federal-government-attempting-protect-internet-things/123301/ The article linked to an interview with Brad Martin, Senior Researcher in NSA’s Research Directorate, published on NSA’s website as part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month. One of the major research initiatives is taking place at NSA’s Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences (LTS) which has constructed the Internet of Things (IoT) Living Lab to provide an environment for the study of IoT devices at the system level rather than the device level. The LTS is equipped to study normal IoT device communications, conduct security analysis across a wide range of platforms, and establish unclassified proof-of-concept capabilities. Another initiative is NSA’s development of the lightweight cryptographic algorithms--Simon and Speck--that are not only strong but are highly efficient, requiring only minimal power and computation space. Finally, NSA is funding fundamental cutting-edge research at several universities under the Science of Security initiative to develop the building blocks to assist others in making secure and resilient IoT and CPS devices and systems. See the full article from the NSA Cyber Security Awareness Month collection (Week 4: Your Evovling Digtial Life) at https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/news_information/2015/ncsam/in_discussion_with_brad_martin.shtml

Check out related articles in the current SoS Newsletter at http://cps-vo.org/node/23278.