Machine-to-Machine Intelligence Corp. has been awarded $75,000 in funds by the Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology directorate to create a deployable cryptographic protocol for an Internet of Things security initiative.
DHS said Thursday that M2Mi will work to develop an open-source version of the lightweight block cipher SPECK that users can run on connected devices.
The effort is part of the department’s Homeland Security Innovation Program for nontraditional technology contractors.
Reginald Brothers, DHS undersecretary for science and technology, said the department seeks to encourage nontraditional entities to develop tools for securing IoT platforms.
DHS and M2Mi aim to help software developers to encrypt IoT systems with an open-source SPECK cipher, the department noted.