IOT
Securing the IoT Haydn founded Secure Thingz after leaving Cambridge chip design giant Arm, where he spent ten years working first on its IoT chips, then on the security side of things. His company provides security for cyber- physical systems – machines that have connected digital and physical elements. “I’m one of the few people who understands embedded systems and security, which are not natural bedfellows,” he says. “Since day one, we’ve focused on that intersection at Secure Thingz. If security isn’t done properly around cyber-physical systems, it can have serious consequences. There was the first real victim of a cyber- physical attack recently, where a lady in Germany died, and we’ve seen things like water treatment plants being attacked and overdosed with chemicals. So, this is a huge problem, and it’s estimated it will soon be a $50bn a year problem.” The incident Haydn refers to saw an emergency patient at a hospital in Düsseldorf miss out on potentially life- saving treatment because the hospital
ABOVE Dr Jessica Ocampos, founder of tech transfer plat form, Camnexus
“IoT means everything and nothing,” says Haydn Povey, founder and CEO of Secure Thingz. “It’s more a set of capabilities than a thing in itself.” And these are capabilities that can be found in abundance in the Cambridge Cluster. The core components of IoT devices and systems, such as sensors, low-power batteries and, of course, software and artificial intelligence, are the building blocks on which the city has made its name. Here, we speak to some IoT pioneers about its growth and what the future holds. Since day one, we’ve focused on that intersection at Secure Thingz. If security isn’t done properly around cyber- physical systems, it can have serious consequences"
she was being driven to was shut down by a cyber-attack. The patient died from her injuries at a different hospital . Secure Thingz provides a suite of development tools for engineers building embedded systems, so they can incorporate security into their devices. It also offers other services, such as PKI encryption – a high- level encryption that can replace conventional passwords – while another product, Secure Deploy, fights the injection of bad code into a system to help stop attackers stealing intellectual property. It sells its tools to customers all over the world. “We work very closely with the chip companies to support their advanced features,” Haydn says. “Our plan is to continue to evolve that support to offer better security at the chip level .” Monitoring the IoT Connecting a load of devices to the internet is all well and good, but what happens if they break down? Device Pilot says it has the answer. Pilgrim founded the business in 2016, having previously enjoyed
8
ISSUE 08
cambridgecatalyst .co.uk
Powered by FlippingBook