Seattle-based Atonomi LLC, a unit of “internet of things” security provider Centri Technology Inc., today announced the beta launch of a secure blockchain ledger-based protocol designed for governing IoT device registration, activation, validation and reputation.

Security and trust are central to communication within IoT networks, which depend on the ability to interconnect with thousands or millions of devices, where at any point information could be intercepted or tampered with.

“The billions of IoT devices that have already been deployed represent a vast attack surface for hackers and other bad actors to target,” said Atonomi Chief Executive Officer Vaughan Emery. “Future projections show ever greater numbers of these devices, tightly woven into the infrastructure of our daily lives.”

The number of “things” within the IoT ecosystem is growing rapidly. According to Gartner, the number of devices could reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Security for this ever-growing network of devices will also follow pace, says another Gartner report, estimating worldwide security spending reaching $1.5 billion during 2018, up 28 percent over 2017.

“In IoT initiatives, organizations often don’t have control over the source and nature of the software and hardware being utilized by smart connected devices,” said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner. “We expect to see demand for tools and services aimed at improving discovery and asset management, software and hardware security assessment and penetration testing.”

At the root of the Atonomi Network is a blockchain, a cryptographic ledger distributed between multiple nodes that adds records of transactions only when enough nodes come into agreement.

With the use of a blockchain, Atonomi can build a web of trusted communication, where every time an IoT device submits information to the network, it must be accepted by a large enough portion of the network as trustworthy or true before its information is acknowledged. Every IoT device connected to the Atonomi Network receives a unique identification and cryptographic tokens to operate on the network and its activities can be tracked by other authorized parties. That allows the network to establish a reputation and define levels of trust for that device and its operations.

The launch of the Atonomi Network beta includes a software development kit available on GitHub so that developers can embed the security protocol into IoT devices. In addition, a QuickStart guide is available to help developers quickly understand the process for registering devices with the network as well as understand smart contracts, which connect the Atonomi Network to the Ethereum blockchain, a globe-spanning computing platform and public blockchain made for businesses.

With the Atonomi Network implemented, developers and manufacturers will be able to secure and validate IoT devices across real-world applications.

This would be useful in a wide variety of industrial internet solutions where devices need to be deployed quickly as sensors and controllers and for other types of operations. For example, every medical device that enters a highly connected hospital – from blood pressure cuffs to MRI machines – need to be brought online and trusted as quickly as possible, all the while not allowing control of those devices to fall into the hands of hackers or letting the information they produce leak from the network.

Such secure communications also have applications for warehouse floors, factories and manufacturing plants, smart buildings and smart cities.

The Atonomi Network is designed to be built upon and extended into numerous applications and across IoT hardware. Using trustworthy registration, identity and transaction security on the blockchain ledger, developers will be able to extend its security across networks to mitigate the risks of communication between unknown devices and those belonging to different manufacturers and less trusted networks.

Atonomi’s parent company, Centri Technology, has partnered with numerous IoT enterprise developers to build its ecosystem, including Arm Holdings, Flex Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp.

Image: Atonomi