Episode 251: Kry10 CEO Boyd Multerer on building a secure OS for the IoT

In this episode of the podcast, host Paul Roberts speaks with Boyd Multerer, CEO of the firm Kry10 about the firm’s technology: a secure operating system for the Internet of Things and about how the challenges of managing modern, connected devices demands new tools and platforms for securing those devices. [Video Podcast] | [MP3] | [Transcript] The Internet of Things is growing – and fast. Data from the firm IoT Analytics  shows that the number of global IoT connections grew by 18% in 2022 to 14.3 billion active IoT endpoints.  By 2027, there will likely be more than 29 billion IoT connections, the firm says.  Unfortunately for consumers, businesses and governments alike: all those billions of devices sit on a shaky foundation. A study of the security of IoT devices by Phosphorus Labs, a cybersecurity company, found that 68% of devices studied contained high-risk or critical software vulnerabilities. That’s consistent with a 2020 study by Palo Alto Networks that found that 57% of IoT devices are vulnerable to medium- or high-severity attacks.  Boyd Multerer is the CEO of Kry10 And, as software and always on Internet connectivity extend to a greater range of endpoints, the stakes are getting higher. Sophisticated, cyber physical devices running on general purpose operating systems like Linux create untold opportunities for mischief. As an example, there are the recent revelations of remotely exploitable flaws in vehicle telematics software which raise the specter of cyber physical attacks in which software based attacks cause damage to persons and property.  This growing population of smart, connected and cyber physical devices demands a new and more secure platform from which to operate – one designed with next generation, smart cyber physical devices in mind. And that’s what our guest today says he’s developed. Boyd Multerer is the CEO and founder of Kry10 (pronounced “Cry Ten”), a company that has developed a highly secure operating system for smart, connected devices in mission critical settings. The Kry10 platform is billed as a zero trust architecture that is capable of limiting the code that can run in privileged mode and isolate  non-core capabilities as possible. In this conversation, I talk with Boyd about Kry10’s technology and the challenge of securing the modern IoT and how the challenges of managing modern, connected devices demands new tools and platforms for securing those devices. To start off, I asked Boyd to talk about his journey through cybersecurity and how his work in the early 2000s as an engineer at Microsoft tasked with developing the company’s massively popular XBOX  and XBOX Live gaming platform informed his current work about secur...