LONDON - Raytheon UK has announced that MWR InfoSecurity is the first winner of its technical research competition aimed at SME (Small Medium Enterprise) in the cyber security domain. The competition's £40,000 prize, recognizing research into an analysis tool to detect rogue code in Android applications, was presented at the "Agile Innovation for Cyber Security Boot Camp" hosted by the UK government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Organizations using enterprise wide Android-based Smart phone and tablet devices have a major challenge around the provisioning and on-going assurance of apps deployed. The research project will provide proof of concept for a new tool offering end users or organisations greater confidence in the security of apps deployed on their devices. Currently, they can trust the public internet app stores, restrict choice of apps to specific third party stores, or ban their use outright, which is not conducive to leveraging mobile technologies and facilitating workforce connectivity.
A number of SME cyber businesses competed, with three having been short-listed to present their proposals at a 'poster session' in mid-November. The research project is set to conclude in March and will help provide assurances, for example, within a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) initiative where a company could use the tool to determine its own risk profile.
Bob Delorge, chief executive of Raytheon UK, commented: "Raytheon UK is wholly supportive of the UK government's initiatives to support the development of SMEs, and in 2014, the company will further efforts to help SMEs develop their ideas in alignment with our technology and business strategies. The benefits for SMEs include access to market, path to exploitation, and relationships with primes, which include guidance and networking. For Raytheon, it helps us broaden our portfolio of innovative solutions."
Martyn Ruks, chief technology officer for MWR InfoSecurity, remarked: "MWR is very excited to be working with Raytheon on this project. We work with a numerous organisations, which face mobile security challenges on a daily basis and commonly find that solutions enabling them to work securely are not always easy to implement. With the proliferation of in-home working and use of Android as a business platform, a new approach is needed to support initiatives such as BYOD. This project is specifically designed to investigate pragmatic and practical methods for overcoming some of the current challenges in this area. The collaboration between MWR and Raytheon on this project will enable us to combine our expertise in order to create a solution that will be of interest to organisations of all sizes. We are excited by the progress so far and look forward to successful completion of the project in March."
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