Monitoring the usual behavior of Internet-connected devices could make it possible to detect malicious activity.
A startup called Bastille says it can help companies detect the hacking of devices connected to the so-called Internet of things, which is looming larger as a target for computer crimes.
Bastille Networks measures the typical radio-frequency signature of all the devices in an office—sensors, industrial control systems, employees’ phones, their fitness bands, Wi-Fi routers, and so on. If anything unusual develops, because a sniffing device has been placed in the office, for example, or because someone appears to be remotely accessing an Internet-of-things-connected device for malicious purposes, Bastille can tell the IT staff. Bastille has been testing its technology with some financial services companies since December and plans to make its technology available to other companies in late 2015.
Atlanta-based Bastille, founded last year, can spread its radio-frequency sensors throughout an office to monitor connected devices that operate over communication protocols like Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Bluetooth low-energy, as well as over cellular networks. The company’s software can determine where these devices are located to within three meters. In the pilot test, CEO Chris Rouland says, the sensors are being placed in areas considered most important to secure, like data centers and executive offices.
Matt Reynolds, an associate professor at the University of Washington who researches radio-frequency technologies, says that one challenge in using radio-frequency monitoring is that not all devices advertise their presence by emitting signals. Some could be set to wake up only when triggered by an attacker. “The mere fact that the device is not advertising its presence doesn’t mean it’s not present and listening,” he says (see “Internet of Treacherous Things”).
“Just like the rest of the Internet, the advantage is on the attacker,” Reynolds says.
Advance Doubles the Longevity of High-Energy Electric Car Batteries
Researchers solve key challenges with energy-dense lithium-air batteries.
Lithium-air batteries, which could give electric cars the same range as gasoline ones, are a step closer to becoming practical. Researchers at Yale and MIT have found a way to alleviate two of the batteries’ biggest problems—their inefficiency and inability to be recharged many times.
The researchers developed a nanostructured membrane that reduces the energy needed to recharge the battery, making it more efficient. The advance also allowed an experimental version of the battery to be recharged 60 times without losing storage capacity— roughly double the number of times as previous versions of the battery. (Electric car batteries should last roughly 1,000 recharge cycles.)
Lithium-air batteries are attractive because of their huge theoretical energy storage capacity, which is, by weight, roughly 10 times higher than the conventional lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles today. That means an electric car using such batteries could easily travel the 350-plus miles people expect from a tank of gasoline, and the battery could be much smaller and cheaper than conventional batteries. Some research groups have recently abandoned research on lithium-air batteries because they’ve had trouble getting the batteries to meet their potential. The advance from Yale and MIT shows that some key problems are being solved, although much work still remains before lithium-air batteries can be used commercially in electric cars.
Lithium-air batteries generate electrical current when lithium ions react with oxygen, forming lithium oxide. Recharging them involves reversing this reaction, breaking the bonds between lithium and oxygen atoms and freeing the oxygen. The problem is that lithium oxide forms a coating on one of the battery electrodes, covering up the catalysts needed to free the oxygen efficiently.
The researchers’ solution was to change the structure of lithium-air batteries, adding a membrane made of catalyst-coated polymer nanofibers. They showed that lithium oxide doesn’t form on the nanofibers, so the catalysts remain relatively exposed and effective.
The experimental battery uses pure oxygen. To realize the theoretical potential of lithium-air batteries would require developing a system that can work in air, which poses several challenges. For example, lithium ions tend to react with carbon dioxide in air, producing lithium carbonates that make the battery difficult to recharge.