---
title: "LADS - Red Balloon Security"
description: "Learn about Red Balloon Security’s contribution to DARPA’s LADS program, which uses analog functionality to create a fully segregated and protected system."
date: "2021-11-19T17:27:52+00:00"
language: "en-US"
canonical_url: "https://xckd6kzuxte054o.onstatic.studio/research/lads/"
source_url: "https://xckd6kzuxte054o.onstatic.studio/research/lads/"
content_type: "text/markdown"
---

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# LADS










## SECURE DEVICE MONITORING










Optically isolated monitoring of embedded device cybersecurity status for the US military.
























## LADS










## SECURE DEVICE MONITORING










Optically isolated monitoring of embedded device cybersecurity status for the US military.























## CLIENT





DARPA










## YEAR





2017














Most people think of IoT devices in terms of their digital outputs, but these devices also output a wide variety of analog signals—noise, heat, EM radiation, power fluctuations. These are typically waste at best and security vulnerabilities at worst, but the DARPA LADS program asked the question: Can we use these to enhance the security of the device? Red Balloon Security was able to definitively answer yes, using an Optical AESOP. Instead of transmitting Symbiote telemetry through network packets, as is standard, Symbiotes configured to work with Optical AESOP blink a LED on a device’s case. An air-gapped system with a photodiode received and decoded these messages, allowing for a fully segregated AESOP system that could not be disabled by outside attackers. Red Balloon Security demonstrated the potential of this device with the “cyber smoke detector”, an air-gapped optical AESOP simultaneously monitoring a half-dozen devices of interest to the US military, sounding an alarm off any were hacked.

 























## CLIENT





DARPA










## YEAR





2017














Most people think of IoT devices in terms of their digital outputs, but these devices also output a wide variety of analog signals—noise, heat, EM radiation, power fluctuations. These are typically waste at best and security vulnerabilities at worst, but the DARPA LADS program asked the question: can we use these to enhance the security of the device? Red Balloon Security was able to definitively answer yes, using an Optical AESOP. Instead of transmitting Symbiote telemetry through network packets, as is standard, Symbiotes configured to work with Optical AESOP blink a LED on a device’s case. An air-gapped system with a photodiode received and decoded these messages, allowing for a fully segregated AESOP system that could not be disabled by outside attackers. Red Balloon Security demonstrated the potential of this device with the “cyber smoke detector”, an air-gapped optical AESOP simultaneously monitoring a half-dozen devices of interest to the US military, sounding an alarm off any were hacked.

 















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