Idaho Scientific
Delivering Comprehensive Architecture Security

The U.S. military faces cyber-security threats from across the globe. Already, adversaries have stolen technology for Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters, and F-35 stealth fighters. Soon, military officials fear, cyber-attacks could reach beyond information systems, crippling planes, helicopters and missiles in mid-air, with disastrous consequences.

Dale Reese, a computer engineer and cyber-security expert, hopes to put a stop to that. In 2015 he founded Idaho Scientific, a small but agile company that puts cyber-security protections into government hands much faster than large contractors. Idaho Scientific specializes in solutions that protect against attacks at the low-level hardware and embedded software levels. Its solutions help the defense sector secure equipment against physical tampering, prevent reverse engineering, and stop over-the-wire cyber exploits.

“We analyze the architecture for potential vulnerabilities, and help our customers design and implement countermeasures based on the threat model,” Reese says.

Idaho Scientific collaborates with government agencies, and actively participates in government-sponsored research programs to develop prototype solutions against threats directed towards the nation’s tactical and critical infrastructures. It then applies its own funding to mature prototypes into robust and sustainable solutions.

Reese, a visionary product designer, firmly believes that most security solutions today address the symptoms of inadequate computer architecture. To that end, “Idaho Scientific solves the security problem by architecting the solution at its origin, which is usually in the processor architecture itself,” he says.

Idaho Scientific protects military equipment by deploying layered security on top of its secure hardware architecture.

Idaho Scientific equips operating systems and virtualization technology with enhancements to leverage its security primitives in hardware.

The company offers a secure microprocessor, Helios, which enables a secure software execution environment. Helios—a ground-up implementation of a RISC-V processor with novel microarchitecture design—mitigates the fundamental vulnerabilities that are being exploited through cyber-attacks. The processor offers a unique ability to protect military and critical infrastructure equipment via the cryptographic enforcement of separation and positive control over code and data executing on the processor.

Idaho Scientific solves the security problem by architecting the solution at its origin, which is usually in the processor architecture itself

“An adversary cannot introduce new instructions into the device as our architecture only runs the code designed for the device, thus rendering the equipment safe from instruction tampering and buffer overflow exploits,” Reese explains.

Idaho Scientific also develops secure System on a Chip (SoC) designs using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). FPGAs are customizable semiconductor chips that, in the company’s hands, become computer processors tailored to stop specific cyber-attacks. The company develops its own FPGA intellectual property (IP) and pairs it with third-party IP to build powerful solutions. These SoCs fortify security for embedded systems.

With in-depth knowledge, experience, and understanding of software security threats, the team at Idaho Scientific ensures its customers’ systems are inherently immune to exploits. This prevention-first approach is superior to playing a “cat and mouse” game of finding and patching deployed vulnerabilities.

In addition to maintaining cutting-edge research and delivering reliable engineering services, Idaho Scientific strives to improve its secure processor design and ramp up the cybersecurity market.