30 June 2017

Whitewood has introduced Entropy-as-as-Service for creating cryptographic keys which it claims are impossible to guess.

Based in Massachusetts, Whitewood is a developer of crypto-security solutions based on advanced quantum technology. The firm says its new cloud-based netRandom Free service delivers “pure quantum entropy” – the foundation of randomness – to generate truly random numbers for creating cryptographic keys that cannot be cracked. 

The service is now available for Windows running on servers, desktops and laptops. At its heart is the Whitewood Entropy Engine which is the result of a decade-long research programme by the quantum security team at Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Whitewood says the use of crypto tools such as encryption have become ubiquitous in modern IT environments and play a critical role in GDPR as well as rapidly emerging technologies such as Blockchain and Bitcoin.

The firm claims its engine is designed to strengthen cryptographic security systems in traditional data centres, virtual cloud environments and embedded systems, such as the IoT, where random numbers in the form of keys underpin the level of trust and security. 

netRandom Free has been developed to deliver on-demand, quantum entropy from a cloud-based server over standard IP networks. Whitewood says it continuously re-seeds existing random number generators within Windows and Linux-based instances and devices.

Richard Moulds, the company’s general manager, says: “Software-based systems are fundamentally predictable and rely on capturing signals or events from the physical world, ranging from mouse movements to hard drive activity and network traffic to increase the level of randomness.” 

As a result, he believes quantum entropy is the only true source of randomness.