• Who is Synaptic Labs

    Synaptic Laboratories Limited

    • A Private Technology Company managed by Australian citizens with Directors in Gozo, Malta (Europe) and Australia

    • Operating internationally on a ‘virtual’ basis with ten years of completed cross domain research and design
    • Core business:  cutting edge cybersecurity solutions that address critical needs and open “hard problems” identified by the USA and other Governments (2005-2010)
    - needs and problems that they say must be solved to enable the trustworthy systems they now envision and call for


    Mature solutions that are at their right time
    • perfectly coinciding with Government and corporate calls for these types of new solutions
    • satisfying their identified needs and requirements
    • proposals now advancing in the USA Federal cyber security initiatives

    Opportunities to get involved
    • Synaptic Labs is currently bringing together a range of international collaborators for funding, product development, marketing and early adoption

  • Why Cybersecurity

    Why Cybersecurity?

    Cybersecurity is the most pressing problem of the 21st Century.  U.S. President Obama's Cyberspace Security Policy Review states that our entire modern way of life is vulnerable and at risk, because cyber space touches everyone and everything, undergirding every aspect of modern life, and because cyber space and the U.S. national ICT infrastructure is NOT secure or resilient.  Therefore no nation, corporation or individual is safe.

    United Nations: "The next world war could take place in cyberspace and this needs to be avoided."

    NATO: Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen — cyber security among the top three priorities

    FBI: Cyber crime approaching annual global "turnover" of USD 1000 billion

    US White House: President Obama:  "From now on, our digital infrastructure ... will be treated as a strategic national asset ... we will develop a new comprehensive strategy to secure America's information and communications networks."

    Government of Great Britain: "Just as in the nineteenth century we had to secure the seas for our national safety and prosperity ... in the twenty first century we also have to secure our position in cyber space"

  • Why Synaptic Solutions

    Why Synaptic Solutions?

    10 years of completed research and design that anticipated today's needs places Synaptic Labs far ahead of the curve
.  Because we address cyber security objectives clearly identified by major institutions including NATO and the US Government.

    •   cross domain global and federated software designs
    •   addressing a broad range of identified problems
    •   no known competitor in targeted domains
    •   very low barriers to market entry

    Enable a new era in cyber security whereby autonomous organizations can satisfy their own long term cybersecurity requirements, in a model that encourages enemies and competitors to collaborate to ensure GREATER security for the interconnected and interdependent global community.

    

Protect and enhance EXISTING globally deployed security standards that must protect investments worth tens of billions and transactions worth trillions.

  • How Do We Know

    How Do We Know?

    •    2008/2009 the USA made 3 international calls for new cybersecurity solutions
    •    Synaptic Labs' proposals were selected from hundreds of submissions
    •    Attended the ‘by invitation only’ 2009 US National Cybersecurity Summit

    •    6 Synaptic Labs' proposals were taken up in the Summit Report  —  no known competitor

    Synaptic Labs' Offers the Only New Global-scale IdM/CKM Solution Showcased at:

    •    the peer reviewed US Oakridge National Laboratory Cyber Security and Information Intelligence Workshop April 2010
    •    the IEEE Key Management Summit Nevada USA May 2010

  • Market Reach

    Market Reach/Deployment Potential


    Synaptic Labs' software solutions

    •    Are universal and can accommodate billions of users

    •    Are ultimately deployable in every computer, every mobile device and every security system

    •    Reward even enemies and competitors for collaborating and therefore are suited for our international interconnected and interdependent information societies and networks
    •    Can benefit every government, corporation and individual (eGovernment, eCommerce and more)
    •    Address critical needs (identified by major US Government agencies) that affect all Governments, corporations and individuals

  • Problems Addressed

    Addresses Critical 'Hard Cybersecurity Problems' Identified by USA NIST and DHS (2009)

    Synaptic Labs' identity management and cryptographic key management (IdM/CKM) design specifically addresses the USA Agencies calls, and specific requirements for, new global-scale IdM/CKM solutions. We employ a federated, distributed 'layered defense' design that ALSO addresses several more of their identified “hardest problems in INFOSEC”, including:

    1. continuity - the need to protect current computing and security systems in production use today from known security problems without requiring a rip-and-replace scenario
    2. usable security - enabling simplified ubiquitous encryption through globally managed identifiers, such as email address (to combat intellectual property and identity theft)
    3. combating insider threats and system wide single point of potential catastrophic failure
    4. combating impact of malware - originally hidden in or downloaded on to hardware devices and operating systems (backdoors, kill switches, viruses, botnet, spyware)
    5. removing the threat of large quantum computers - over 1 billion applications at risk
    6. survivability and availability - employs a distributed 'layered defense' design to guarantee the availability and security of services to clients in the face of partial failures
    7. situational awareness - Our proposal enables push/pull based event notification and can recall earlier transactions/behavior to improve service efficiency and security
03 September 2010
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SYNAPTIC LABS IN USA FEDERAL CYBERSECURITY INITIATIVES
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White House Executive Office of the President: Synaptic Labs is invited to participate in the USA Federal cybersecurity initiatives that followed from the USA President's Cyberspace Policy Review. Synaptic offered six game changing proposals including a global identity management (IdM) and cryptographic key management (CKM) proposal specifically responding to the President's call for a new "cybersecurity based identity based vision". Read more...

Department of Homeland Security: Synaptic Labs' global IdM/CKM proposal answers the DHS call to find solutions to identified "Current Hard Problems in INFOSEC Research" in the areas of Global-Scale Identity Management, and scalable security designs that combat insider threats. Read more...

Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD): Synaptic Labs submitted three proposals to the NITRD's three international calls for leap-ahead cybersecurity proposals that resulted in Synaptic Labs participation in the NITRD "by invitation only" 2009 Summit. At that summit, Synaptic Labs submits six proposals, including proposals on global IdM/CKM and next generation Internet designs, which are taken forward in the NITRD 2009 "National Cyber Leap Year Summit". Read more... Synaptic Labs responds to the next phase of the NITRD 2010 call for input via their Cybersecurity Forum with 8 postings that outline various Synaptic Labs technologies in the context of the NITRD objectives. Offsite link to postings...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Cyber Security and Information Intelligence Research Workshop 2010 (CSIIRW-6): Following on from our proposals put forward at the NITRD summit, Synaptic Labs presented two peer reviewed related proposals, the first on global identity management and the second one, co-authored and co-presented with Owen McCusker of the US defence contractor Sonalysts, on combining identity with behavioural analysis. Read more...

IEEE Key Management Summit (IEEE KMS 2010): Synaptic Labs' global IdM/CKM proposal is presented to, and well received by, a specialist key management audience. It is the only proposal at the Summit to address Global-scale cryptographic key management and propose new solutions to currently open hard problems in the field. Read more...

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): Synaptic Labs' global IdM/CKM proposal perfectly matches unmet needs identified by participants and senior NIST staff in the NIST CKM Project Workshop (2009). Read more...

USA National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA): Synaptic Labs submits 6 inputs that are accepted into the NTIA call for public comment on "Information Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy" (2010). Offsite Link to Submission...

SYNAPTIC LABS IN EUROPEAN CYBERSECURITY INITIATIVES
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NATO: NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently named cybersecurity among the top three priorities. Synaptic Labs' solutions have been promoted into NATO. Read more...

European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA): Synaptic Labs participates in the ENISA call for input. Read more...

FP7 THINK-TRUST: Synaptic Labs participates in the EU THINK-TRUST call for input. Read more...

CARTES & Identification, Paris: Synaptic Labs' CTO is guest presenter on long term security at largest annual global smart card congress for 3 consecutive years.  Read more...

European Network of Excellence for Cryptology (ECRYPT): Synaptic Labs participated in the stream cipher competition and was a loud advocate for long-term high assurance security. Synaptic Labs' cipher submission...

More information

UK Government: In June 2009 the United Kingdom Government announced it's cybersecurity strategy.

United Nations: ITU Secretary General Dr. Hamdoun Toure reports that the next world war could happen in cyberspace. Read more...

South Korea: 3000 cyber police are employed.

INCO-TRUST:  Promotes collaboration and partnerships between researchers from the developed countries such as the EU and USA in the areas of ICT Trust, Security and Dependability.

Hot technologies

Universal Key Exchange

The world's first (and only) Global-scale identifier based encryption proposal for the Internet. Manage credentials and negotiate key material internationally using public identifiers such as email addresses. Read more...

Group Key Exchange

Synaptic Lab's group key exchange is the preferred method for securely negotiating initial symmetric key material in cyptosystems. Provides enhanced protection against insider attacks. Read more...

  • "Security and dependability issues typically go along with the life cycle of a technology.  The trend to first deploy a technology and later fix its problems – typically driven by economic motives – is gradually making way for security by design, resulting in improved security at the beginning of the life cycle."

    SecurIST, “D3.3 – ICT Security & Dependability Research beyond 2010: Final Strategy”, January 2007
    Read more...
  • "First and foremost, there is no proper excuse for continued use of a broken cryptographic primitive (MD5) when sufficiently strong alternatives are readily available, for example SHA-2. Secondly, there is no substitute for security awareness." ... "Advice from experts should be taken seriously and early in the process. In this case, MD5 should have been phased out soon after 2004."

    Alexander Sotirov, Marc Stevens, Jacob Appelbaum, Arjen Lenstra, David Molnar, Dag Arne Osvik, Benne de Wegerr, "MD5 considered harmful today - Creating a rogue CA certificate", December 2008
    Read more...

  • “We are a cyber nation. The U.S. information infrastructure--including telecommunications and computer networks and systems and the data that reside on them--is critical to virtually every aspect of modern life. This information infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to exploitation, disruption, and destruction by a growing array of adversaries.”

    The National Coordination Office (NCO) for Networking Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD), Federal Register: December 30, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 250).

    Read more...

LEADING EXPERTS DECLARE THE SECURITY IN VISA AND MASTERCARD “BROKEN” AND A NEW CARD COMPANY AND BRAND IS LAUNCHED IN LATIN AMERICA


In May 2010 world leading security experts demonstrated that the security that protects more than 780 million credit and debit cards, including Eurocard, Mastercard and VISA, at the point of sale is “broken”. If someone temporarily has access to your card they do not need the PIN number to be able to use it. The experts say there are also significant problems in the back end of the credit card system!

As Dr. Jeanette Wing of the US National Science Foundation declared at the US NIST Cybersecurity R&D Themes, 2010:
Say "NO!" to business as usual. We don't want it, we can't take it anymore.

Therefore the launch of ELO, a new credit and debit card company and brand in Brasil, provides a golden opportunity to showcase world leadership by delivering new levels in banking security.

Read more...

STREAMING VIDEOS
( NITRD, IEEE KMS 2010 )

A series of 5 comprehensive high-definition videos introducing Synaptic Labs, our cybersecurity proposals, and how we address USA and EU Cybersecurity needs are online now. Videos range from ~20 minutes to an hour in length.

Click here to watch the videos now.

Synaptic Labs' Global IdM/CKM Proposal


• Synaptic Laboratories Limited global cybersecurity model has been presented and published by the:
- USA NITRD National Cyber Leap Year Summit Participants Ideas Report 2009
- World Smartcard and Electronic Identity Congress CARTES, Paris FRANCE 2009
- USA Oak Ridge National Laboratory 2010 Cyber Security and Information Intelligence Research Workshop (CSIIRW)
- USA IEEE Key Management Summit 2010
• Synaptic Labs offered the only new global IdM/CKM cybersecurity model at the above events:
- No known competitor
• The Synaptic Labs model offers an immediate COMBINED solution to urgent and current hard problems identified in 2009 by:
- USA Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD)
- USA National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST)
- USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• Specifically the Synaptic Labs global cybersecurity model:
- satisfies the Nov. 2009 DHS call for a new global-scale identity management (IdM) solution
- satisfies the Nov. 2009 DHS call for security systems that battle both insider and outsider attacks
- satisfies many requirements for a new global cryptographic key management (CKM) solution identified by participants (including senior NIST staff) at the June 2009 NIST CKM Workshop
- satisfies the NITRD 2009 Summit call for simplified key management to enable ubiquitous take up of encryption to combat cyber crime
- exploits layered trust models that combine object identity with behavioural analysis - as presented at the 2010 Oak Ridge National Laboratory CSIIRW
- is suitable for both symmetric and public key security systems

Key Features


• Exploits existing, commercial off the shelf hardware, in the form of low-cost smart cards, hardware security modules and smart card programmers
• Wraps around and protects the output of existing (FIPS 140-2 approved) software and hardware security installations without modifying protocols or breaking interoperability
• Relies on the strength of conventional NIST approved security primitives, such as AES-256 and SHA-512
• Combats insider attacks by using techniques pioneered by cryptographic giants Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, Leslie Lamport
• Combats malware threats embedded within software and hardware
• Designed to scale to billions of users in a international/ global system that empowers organisations to take full control of their own security needs while supporting collaboration between traditional competitors or adversaries

 

Independent Evaluations

  • The Synaptic (Enterprise/Universal) key exchange is a very attractive and very interesting proposal to resolve a major global problem. We are unaware of any symmetric key designs proposing to be suitable to replace public key cryptography in this way. We consider the design to be inspirational and really exciting. The Synaptic design relies on well studied cryptographic techniques and block ciphers and hash functions that are international standards and that are already accepted to offer post quantum security.

    – Professors Jacques PATARIN and Louis GOUBIN.  Jacques and Louis are Professors in, and Jacques is Head of, the Cryptography Department in the PRiSM Research Laboratory, University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (YUV) in France.  Both Jacques and Louis are expert security consultants to global corporations and are published inventors of several next-generation public key algorithms intended to be secure against quantum computer attacks. Therefore they were uniquely qualified to make the initial independent assessment of the Synaptic Labs model.
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