By now the world has accepted the fact that the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to be the largest business transformation over the next 10 years. Industry giants have forecasted over 20-billion new smart objects by 2020, with all of these objects creating more data than the world has ever seen. Valuable, personal and private data that needs to be secured like never before.
“We are developing a unique way to encrypt and authenticate data at its inception and keep it secure until our clients want it decrypted,” says Ric Asselstine, CEO of Terepac. “That’s end-to-end IoT security.”
Terepac began by architecting full IoT solutions and quickly realized that one of the key considerations, that was a must to address, was security. “For this Internet of Things to really break out, to create the trillions of dollars in economic value projected by the likes of Cisco and IBM, the data that these companies are really seeking,” adds Asselstine. “The data needs to be secure.”
A few years ago, companies started telling Terepac that they weren’t looking for just a sensor, they were looking for a secure solution. After hearing this same request from more than one multi-billion-dollar multinational company, Terepac took notice. Recognizing the need, Terepac reorganized to create these complete and secure end-to-end solutions now being demanded – Solutions that embody the company’s slogan, ‘Giving voice to the world’”.
Terepac was fortunate to be located in the City of Waterloo, where there was a wealth of security, hardware, firmware, and infrastructure design talent to tap into. Through a series of Waterloo-ecosystem-based introductions, Asselstine and Terepac VP Software & Platform Development, Harry Major, were able to create a software development team which included key staff that helped architect the original secure platform for RIM and the BlackBerry.
Led by Major, Terepac has formed a team that is acting on filling the IoT security void by developing the Terepac secure software platform, to be embedded in all Terepac platform-based offerings. In addition to this, the platform will power products designed to be Software-as-a-Service offerings. These products will serve companies around the planet seeking to have secure access to the IoT and the wonders that electronic voices will yield, ones that Terepac is uniquely creating.
“With my team’s experience and know-how we are able to create this next-generation version of an encrypted, authenticated, secure and private platform useable for almost any object.” says Major, “Whether it’s a municipal water system, mining equipment or a wearable medical device, our platform will keep IoT data secure.”
The platform is being built with security included from the ground up, even so far as keeping an eye out to the future of quantum computing-based standards and what it may imply for the IoT world.
According to Major, “We’re solving the difficult problems in making data secure in an IoT environment. Having lived through the experiences of securing the BlackBerry, our team understands the complexities of managing data from inception to insights.” While the technology is different, the principles of how to go about doing it remain the same. “Our team brings that know-how to Terepac and this amazingly expansive Internet of Things”.
So has Terepac secured its future? As the company emerges from angel funded to revenue generation and seeking to secure its next stages of capital, those pieces will play out. What Asselstine does know, however, is that by working to secure the Internet of Things it has secured its future in the IoT.
