US Navy Launches ‘PARANOID’ Blockchain Security Technology for Private Sector

The United States Navy seeks private sector partners for a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to advance its proprietary “PARANOID” blockchain technology.

Paranoid (a powerful authentication system applied to the integrated development of the Navy's flight program) is a blockchain-based approach to protecting software from cyberattacks during development and deployment.

The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) in Lakehurst, New Jersey invented and developed Paranoid to protect avionics software for the US Navy, but soon realized it was applicable to any security-critical software development task.

Paranoid secures software throughout the development process by verifying files on nodes through the blockchain at each stage. Every step a developer takes is recorded as an entry on the PARANOID blockchain, thus providing an activity log.

If bad actors attempt to hack or hack software by editing, replacing, or deleting code or files, such changes cannot be verified against the immutable database of the PARANOID system on the blockchain.

The U.S. Navy is making the PARANOID system available to the private sector for research and further development, according to a blog post from TechLink, a U.S. Department of Defense “technology transfer partner.”

Per Nida Shak, Senior Technology Manager at TechLink:

“A good CRADA partner is a company interested in developing a solution to protect the software supply chain. This includes companies in the software development field willing to install and test PARANOID for feedback and customization.”

Although this is the first proprietary blocking innovation we've seen commercialized from the US Navy, it's not the first time the US military has done so with the technology.

The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy have previously signed deals with SIMBA Chain, a Notre-Dame-incubated data exchange, to use blockchain technology to secure supply lines.

Related: US Navy Awards $1.5M Jet Fighter Contract to Blockchain Project