Most Connected Devices Are Easy to Hack. This Company Says It Can Fix That

Some of the smallest electronics have big security problems. One of the biggest known brute-force attacks in internet history, in 2016, took down broad swaths of the web across North America and Europe with phony traffic signals generated by tens of thousands of smart baby monitors, webcams, and the like. These typically innocuous devices lack the security of your laptop or phone, making them 8 billion possible sources of trouble.

Louis Parks says he has the answer. Parks runs SecureRF Corp., a 20-employee startup in Shelton, Conn., that sells software aimed at safeguarding the so-called internet of things. The pitch revolves around efficiency: SecureRF’s code is clean enough to run powerful software on what can often be pretty weak hardware. “The nature of our math allows us to work with smaller numbers and simpler processes,” he says.