US Navy launches ‘PARANOID’ blockchain security tech to private sector

The United States Navy is seeking private sector partners for a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) to help advance its proprietary “PARANOID” blockchain technology. 

PARANOID (Powerful Authentication Regime Applicable to Naval Operational Flight Program Integrated Development) is a blockchain-based system for securing software against cyberattacks during development and deployment.

The Naval Air Warfare Center’s Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) at Lakehurst, New Jersey, invented and developed PARANOID to secure avionics software for the U.S. Navy but soon thereafter realized its applicability to any software development endeavor wherein security is a factor.

PARANOID protects software throughout its development process by verifying files across nodes at every step via blockchain. Every action a developer takes is registered as an entry on the PARANOID blockchain, thus providing a ledger of activity.

If bad actors were to try and hijack or hack software during development by editing, replacing, or deleting code or files, such changes would fail verification against the PARANOID system’s immutable database on the blockchain.

According to a blog post from TechLink, the U.S. Department of Defense’s “technology transfer partner,” the U.S. Navy is making the PARANOID system available to private sector parties who wish to help research and develop it further.”

Per Nida Shaikh, senior technology manager at TechLink:

“An ideal CRADA partner would be a company interested in developing a solution for securing software supply chain. This would include companies in the realm of software development who would be willing to install and test PARANOID for feedback and scalability.”

Though it appears to be the first proprietary blockchain invention we’ve seen commercialized from the U.S. Navy, it’s not the U.S. military’s first foray into the technology itself.

Both the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy have in the past inked agreements with SIMBA Chain, a Notre-Dame incubated data exchange that uses blockchain technology to secure supply lines.

Related: US Navy awards $1.5M jet fighter contract to blockchain project