[LUM#17] A secure bridge to your connected devices
Your phone, your computer, your tablet—all these connected devices have one thing in common hidden deep inside them: a chip. This essential integrated circuit has long been a security vulnerability, but one that can now be addressed thanks to technology developed by Algodone.
May 7, 2021, United States. An unprecedented cyberattack targets the Colonial Pipeline, the largest refined petroleum products pipeline in the United States, threatening the fuel supply to a large part of the country. June 2017, Ukraine. One-fifth of the city of Kyiv is left without power after hackers infiltrated the computers of Ukrenergo, the Ukrainian electricity company.
What do these two events have in common? “The introduction of a software virus that infected these companies’ internal networks, with a new and unexpected impact: malicious activation directly on the physical infrastructure. “This attack was programmed to include the ability to ‘communicate’ directly with network equipment by sending commands to the control systems—that is, to the very core of the hardware, ” explains Lionel Torres, a researcher at the Montpellier Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics, and Microelectronics (Lirmm)*.
So are our thousands of connected devices all potential security vulnerabilities? “There is clearly a weak point in all these devices: their chips, which are either unsecured or only minimally secured, and thus provide an easy entry point for hackers.” Armed with this alarming insight, the microelectronics specialist decided in 2015 to develop a tailored solution. “When you use a computer, you’re given a license to run the software, but no equivalent system existed at the time for chips, so we created one.” Together with Jérôme Rampon and Gaël Paul, he founded the company Algodone and received support from Languedoc-Roussillon Incubation and SATT AxLR. His goal: to provide a secure bridge between connected devices.
New business model
With its first patent filed in 2015 and a physical prototype developed shortly thereafter, Algodone offers nothing less than an entirely new business model: “We offer a device that enables the secure activation, configuration, protection, and monetization of electronic system networks. This is what we call secure activation licensing technology, ” explains the researcher. This technology authorizes the integrated circuit to operate while preventing unauthorized access. It can even selectively grant or deny certain users access to specific data. This original idea earned Algodone the top prize in the 2015 i-Lab innovation competition.
After raising €1.2 million in 2017, the small company has grown, and Algodone now has 11 employees. And major clients. “We work primarily in the cybersecurity sector, notably with major companies such as Thales, Dassault Aviation, MBDA, and STMicroelectronics,” explains Lionel Torres. This is a major challenge for a sector whose mission is to ensure that connected devices are secure.
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* Lirmm (UM, CNRS, INRIA, UPVD, UPVM)