US defence contractor Lockheed Martin has contracted Guardtime Federal, making it the first American-based defence company to incorporate blockchain technology into its development processes.

The two companies are looking to address the threat of manipulation to ‘networked and weapon system embedded cyber physical systems’. According to Lockheed Martin, cyber-focused threatst to the entire development and fielding lifecycle continue to evolve.

The contractor hopes that blockchain will allow it to produce ‘more efficient and assured offerings to the federal government’.

The project will use Guardtime Federal’s Black Lantern appliances and core blockchain infrastructure to help make software development and supply chain management more efficient and secure.

Maturing a concept

The two companies are maturing a concept that they are referring to as ‘cyber aware systems engineering’. This is part of the ongoing process to explore ‘non-traditional approaches, technologies and processes’ relating to design cyber security.

Guardtime Federal has assembled a consortium of small businesses to take the project forward: Galois, ForAllSecure and Trial of Bits.

“These new cyber security approaches will enhance data integrity, speed problem discovery and mitigation, and reduce the volume of regression testing, which results in reduced schedule risk,” said Ron Bessire, vice president of Aeronautics’ Engineering and Technology at Lockheed Martin.

“The faster our developers can discover issues, the faster we can deliver.”

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