Telstra Ventures-backed Zimperium defends US troops against cyber warfare

The US Department of Defence has picked Telstra Ventures-backed company Zimperium to defend its troops against cyber attacks.

Texas-based Zimperium has won the contract to protect US armed forces personnel’s mobile devices from threats such as phishing, malware and network attacks. Picture: AFP/Capt. Robyn J. Haake/US Army

A company backed by Telstra’s venture capital arm has struck a deal with the US Department of Defence to protect the smart phones and other mobile devices of tens of thousands of American troops around the globe.

Texas-based Zimperium — which is one of the 14 cybersecurity companies that Telstra Ventures has poured $US100m ($139m) into — has won the contract to protect armed forces personnel’s mobile devices from threats such as phishing, malware and network attacks.

Although the contract relates to “unclassified devices”, Zimperium vice-president of product development JT Keating said personal mobile devices presented a wealth of information that could endanger national security.

“Even though they’re unclassified, not like hardened devices like you would have in the actual warzones, there is a whole bunch of information that can actually be detrimental to the United States,” Mr Keating said.

“When you paint the scenario of what’s on a phone — there is a whole blackmail side of things and everything like that. The other part is every attachment that’s in your email on your mobile phone is in one folder. If someone was able to compromise your device they would just pull that folder.

“It’s the same thing with the contacts. Maybe you’d be one particular soldier but if your contacts include a colonel and his contacts include five-star generals, there are all sorts of different accesses that could be granted.”

The deal between Zimperium and the US Department of Defence comes three years after Russia hacked the smart phones of troops stationed at a NATO base in Poland.

The attack aimed to gain operational information, gauge troop strength and intimidate soldiers, using sophisticated drones equipped with surveillance electronics.

Western officials said that in a crisis, compromised phones could be used to slow NATO’s response to Russian military action if, for example, the personal mobile phone of a commander was used to send out fake instructions. While such communications via a private device ought to be disregarded, it could sow confusion, they said.

“Russia was caught bolting a ‘pineapple’ — a rogue access point, fake Wi-Fi — onto a drone and flew it around a NATO base in Poland and 4000 soldiers’ phones connected to this fake Wi-Fi thinking it was NATO,” Mr Keating said.

“There were troop movements, just strictly based on the geo of the phone, cameras were turned on and eventually fake orders sent to these devices. The national security implications are pretty significant.”

The Zimperium platform will monitor Department of Defence users when securely accessing applications and data on iOS and Android devices. The platform uses Zimperium’s on-device, machine learning-based engine to protect devices from mobile threats, even when an attacker controlled the network, Mr Keating said.

He said the company was looking at rolling out its technology across US allied countries.

“There are certain areas that I can’t talk about, like who we are actually talking to specifically. But generically the concept of protecting governments both civil and defence as well as intelligence communities — we are doing that around the world and with a lot of allies.

“We have a significant number of customers who are civil and defence/intelligence in the US. We also have some in Europe and Asia.”

Telstra Ventures — founded in 2011 and spun off two years ago as an independent venture capital fund — has invested in 69 companies, 14 of which are dedicated to cybersecurity. The fund is also backed by HarbourVest.

Additional reporting: The Wall Street Journal