COLUMBIA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MasterPeace Solutions Ltd., a rapidly growing cyber and technology company, today announced osMUD, an open source project to reduce the vulnerability of IoT devices within consumer and small business environments based on the new IETF MUD standard. This project was shared with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) and will be further developed as one of the first open source Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD) managers.
The NIST consortium, which includes Cable Labs, Cisco, CTIA, Digicert, ForeScout, Global Cyber Alliance, Patton, and Symantec, along with MasterPeace, will provide code and expertise to make it significantly harder for malicious actors to compromise and exploit IoT devices on a home or small-business network. Engineers from MasterPeace’s technology accelerator LaunchPad, including those from a company operating in stealth, are contributing their network security engineering and operations defense expertise to the NIST-led consortium.
Research by Gartner suggests there will be 20.4 billion connected devices by 2020, up from 8.4 billion in 2017. The devices, deployed in enterprise environments and home networks, are known to have flaws in their software and, as a result, are compromised at an alarming rate. Implementing MUD in routers and network devices will assure that IoT connected devices do not communicate with or access places that are not approved ahead of time. Together, the consortium will produce a NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide, a freely available description of the solution and practical steps needed to help consumers and small businesses mitigate IoT-based threats that take advantage of their devices and networks.
“The number and variety of IoT devices being connected to the network creates a difficult situation for anyone responsible for protecting their environment from intrusion and compromise,” said Drew Cohen, President and CEO of MasterPeace. “MUD will make it possible for manufacturers to define ‘safe’ operating conditions of their devices so that network security capabilities can automatically limit device functionality to appropriate usage, thereby blocking malicious activity.”
This standards-based approach differs from existing cybersecurity approaches because it uses the subject matter expertise of device manufacturers, network security vendors, and network administrators to proactively and automatically secure IoT endpoints. The implementation of MUD can help prevent inappropriate communications by IoT devices and drastically reduce the complications of scale for network and security administrators. Having IoT safe behavior information available in a free open source tool helps automate complex security policies, making IoT devices safer and ensure that nation states and bad actors are less likely to infiltrate networks as a result of poor IoT security hygiene.
About MasterPeace
MasterPeace is an advanced technology company designed to unlock the imagination and creativity of our engineers and technologists while helping them reach their highest potential. Our workforce is comprised of a collection of technologists, developers and engineers working on wicked hard problems for the United States Government. MasterPeace believes in fostering innovation and to that end established MP LaunchPad to help our engineers turn their ideas into viable new commercial cyber and technology companies. For more information, please visit: http://www.masterpeaceltd.com/
