DHS Selects 8 Firms, Universities for Mobile Security Tech R&D Program

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has awarded six companies and two universities contracts worth $10.4 million combined to help DHS secure federally approved mobile devices.

DHS said Thursday the eight awardees will explore tools and methods for mobile device instrumentation, transactional security, device layer protection and security management through the initiative.

“While initially focused on securing mobile devices used by government agencies, these efforts will help provide security for mobile devices across the entire public and private sectors,” said Vincent Sritapan, mobile device security program manager at DHS’ science and technology directorate.

Northrop Grumman, United Technologies Corp.‘s research center, Kryptowire and HRL Laboratories will focus on developing user authentication and identification systems.

DHS also asked IBM‘s research division and the University of North Carolina to help create mobile user identifiers.

Rutgers University will help research technology for government organizations to monitor mobile device and information access, while Intelligent Automation seeks to identify new tools to protect device layers against malware.