Telefónica and Halotech team up for post-quantum encryption on industrial IoT

The solution is called TU Quantum Encryption and is designed to provide higher grade secure communication for smart devices such as the Halo I connected helmets and the Halo III smart bracelet from Halotech.

These devices are equipped with GPS, an emergency SOS button, fall detector and sensors that measure the quality of the environment, such as noise level, temperature, humidity, pressure, air quality and thermal stress, and other factors which have the propensity to get hairy in industrial environments.

Telefónica provides the connectivity through NB-IoT and LTE-M networks – networks with low power consumption and wide coverage range. The project is supposed to optimise operational performance in 'tactical operations bubbles', where the safety of workers is a priority.

It is run through through Telefónica Tech's Kite platform, a managed connectivity IoT platform that allows users to monitor and control their devices in real time and remotely, and the post-quantum cryptography bolt-on is supposed to add an extra layer of security against ‘future threats derived from quantum computing.’

“We have worked with Telefónica Tech to integrate, under a hybrid model, the most advanced post-quantum security in Telefónica's IoT Data Ready Service systems,” said Antonio Guzmán, Director of Discovery at Telefónica Innovación Digital. “In this way, all critical information is encrypted using classical and post-quantum algorithms. With this integration, we effectively mitigate the current threats to the secrecy of information, derived from the impact that quantum computing will have on current cryptography. This solution, which anticipates and solves real problems, has been brought into production together with our partner HaloTechs”.

Manu Marín, CEO of Halotech Digital Services, added: “This collaboration with Telefónica marks a before and after for Halotech AI, allowing us to offer our customers, both in industry and law enforcement, a technology that not only optimizes security in critical environments, but also ensures the protection of information with the highest security standards. Both the Halo I helmet and the Halo III armband, connected to our platform, allow us to govern security in tactical operations efficiently and with total confidence”.

Earlier on in the year, Telefónica teamed up with Fortinet, Quantum Xchange and Iberian technology integrator Warpcom to develop a tool to defend against future quantum powered cyber attacks. The solution was ‘ready to be tested in a production environment by organizations anywhere in the world,’ we were told at the time, and presumably some of the work that went into that project has landed here.