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June 12, 2024 17 mins

Christine Perey of the AR for Enterprise Alliance chats with James Cooper of RTX (formerly Raytheon). They discuss trends, best practices, and emerging implementations of cybersecurity for AR software and hardware.

Read Christine's Top 12 blog: "Top 2024 Enterprise AR Trends to Watch": https://thearea.org/top-2024-enterprise-ar-trends-to-watch/  

#9 is Security!

 

 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hello, I'm Karen Quatromoni,
the Director of Public Relationsfor Object Management Group, OMG.
Welcome to our OMG Podcast series. At OMG,
we're known for driving industrystandards and building tech communities.
Today we're focusing on theaugmented reality for Enterprise

(00:25):
Alliance area, which is an OMG program.
The area accelerates AR adoptionby creating a comprehensive
ecosystem for enterprises,providers, and research institutions.
This q and a session will be led byChristine Perey from Perey Research and
Consulting.

(00:46):
Hello and welcome back.
This is Christine Perey andI'm hosting this fireside
chat today with a colleague, James Cooper,
and we're going to be talkingabout security and the issues of
security around AR devices andAR content in the enterprise.

(01:07):
James, would youintroduce yourself please?
Yeah, thank you Christine. Soas mentioned, I am James Cooper.
I am a chief technologist for AdvancedVisualization Technologies at Raytheon,
which is part of RTX. So I've beendoing this for a couple of years now,
really looking at different use cases,
needs and opportunities whereadvanced visualization solutions,
including augmented reality,

(01:27):
might help us meet our needs andstay ahead of the curve. I've also,
for the last, I think two,maybe three months now,
been the securitycommittee chair for area.
So helping to serve on looking atthe needs and opportunities really
focused on security and augmentedreality applications across enterprise.

(01:47):
Perfect. Well,
I wrote up a trend inthat blog post in January
suggesting that maybesecurity would be something
that could be put into thenetwork. What do I mean by that?
That the network

(02:09):
servers or equipment would have
information about users
that would allow themto authenticate without
having to do a lot of inputs,
like a password and other things.

(02:30):
There are other approaches,
but I think maybe thisyear there's going to be
some developments in that area, butit's just a rumor, it's just an idea,
and I wonder if you have any concernsabout that or if you have any
opinions and professionalopinions about that strategy.

(02:54):
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean,
in my experience here at Raytheonand Aerospace and defense in general,
network-based security, it'ssomething that we've done for a while.
It's not as advanced and streamlinedas what you were proposing
there. So it isn't quite asimple matter of plug and play,
but if you're looking at somethinglike say a standalone AR device and

(03:19):
versus a company mobile device,
something that we're really going todeploy as a device that can access
our company information,
there's a lot that goes into how we'reassessing both the hardware and the
software,
even the chip sets themselves that areon these devices to make sure that we
understand the country and placesof origin, factories of origin.

(03:43):
So for us,
I don't know if we'll eventually getto the point where maybe we are able to
just plug it in and throughsome kind of simpler,
more straightforwardauthentication, it'll understand,
accept who we are.There have been advances made in that way,
like our company mobile devices where wecan use things like facial recognition
or thumbprint recognition aspart of that authentication.

(04:06):
But there's still a lot of other factors,
VPN or single sign-on or other kindsof methodologies that really need to be
used to authenticate who we are.
So that's going to continue to be alot of concern for us is what is that
sufficient adequate degree ofauthentication and user validation,
even role validation. So if I saythat, okay, this is Christine,

(04:30):
I know this Christine, butwhat access does Christine?
What's appropriate for her to have? Whatsystems should she be able to access?
What data, what capabilities?
So there's a lot that currently has togo into it and how we might approach
that in a secure sensiblemanner towards this future
state is definitely something that'sgoing to require some thought.

(04:54):
And is that in scope?
Is that the discussion that you'rehaving in the security committee?
What are the approaches that are under
consideration or that are recommended?
So under the security committee right now,
a lot of our activities have been focused.

(05:15):
Ron Zaha has been leading this efforttowards this augmented reality security
maturity model or SMM.
And really we've been having a lot ofdiscussions around what are the different
levels of maturity
for augmented realitysystems within an enterprise.
And there is a lot in there aboutsecurity and the appropriate levels if you

(05:37):
have, how users authenticated,how the roles are defined,
what types of mobile device managementor MDM are deployed, all these systems,
all sorts of factors like that.
We're actually having a pretty thoroughdiscussion around these and continue to
really iterate that on that becauseit is a really comprehensive and deep

(05:59):
discussion that warrants alot of into consideration.
Are the standard MDM platforms,
I don't need to name any by name,
but are the ones that weused for managing laptops
and cell phones and otherdevices appropriate and

(06:21):
ready for managing AR devices as well?
Yeah, no, that's been part of theconsideration here at Raytheon.
We're looking at more of theseaugmented or other XR devices
and saying for the ones that aretethered to your PC are less of a
concern because you'rematched more on the computer.

(06:43):
But as we're increasingly lookingat these standalone mobile devices,
we really do need to lookat that MDM component.
And there are a number of companiesthat are the non-traditional.
They're emerging out in the last severalyears saying that they are around
really to manage these XRdevices, but they're new players.
We would still have to go through and doa lot of vetting of their capabilities

(07:06):
and do deep dives. Andthere is, in our industry,
there's a lot of considerationabout cloud architecture. Of course,
a lot of these tie back into the cloudand especially the commercial cloud,
and that can be a real showstopper for us.
I was thinking that exact, thosewere the words I was thinking. Yeah.
But I think that there's also a

(07:28):
edge that can be deployed on an enterprise
network and also, let's see,
5G, maybe there's some capabilitiesthat are inherent to 5G
that could serve whenyou deploy a private 5G

(07:49):
network. Is that the case? Arethere special services there or not?
So there is definitely some considerationabout separate non-production
networks versus actual deployedcome corporate networks.
We do have several of those kindsof paradigms here at the company,
and I know others outthere have as well. Again,

(08:11):
a lot of discussions around these typesof things in the security committee.
So sometimes it is through an MBM,
and there are some of the more traditionalones out there that you mentioned
that that exists now on some of thesedevices or deploy all the devices.
But even without that, notwithstanding,
there are times when you mightlook at it and say, okay,

(08:33):
it doesn't really make that much sense.
It doesn't bring that much value todeploy it on our company factory network,
for example. So there is a secondarynetwork that might be more secure.
Maybe it is an edge networklike you're talking about,
or maybe it's just some logicallyseparated other division of your company
network.
But that's definitely another way thatwe are looking at enabling security for

(08:55):
these devices.
It's more to manage.
It increases the complexityof the integration and the
management. I'm sure.
It certainly does.
Yeah.
Are there some other security trends that

(09:15):
you as a professional in thisfield really need to keep on top
of?
And you feel that ARprofessionals would be,
well-served to know andunderstand what those trends are?
What else is happening? Is it,
let me just preface thisbefore you answer to say,

(09:36):
many of the devices that you might be
evaluating are reallydeveloper devices and not
production devices.
They're created to helpdevelopers experiment,
explore all the capabilities.
So there are things that are open thatin a production device you wouldn't have.

(09:59):
There are of course the reverse somethings that are closed where developers
would like them to be open accessto different kinds of cameras,
different kinds of sensors frombelow the operating system itself.
But I'm wondering ifthere are security trends
that aren't AR specific, but that we can

(10:22):
apply or learn from.
Yeah, I think so. I had acouple of thoughts about this,
thinking about thequestions ahead of time,
and one of the things Ithink is interesting right now of course is that a lot
of the really prevalent AR or MRdevices that are out there have
been developed with a little bit moreof industry and focus enterprise and

(10:44):
focus. So people like yourself and myselfwho've been looking at this with an
enterprise eye for years,
we've seen these technologies and triedto understand what capabilities they
bring, and we've had ourenthusiasm about 'em.
But of course nowadays with things likethe MedQuest three or the Apple Vision
Pro, there is thissignificant renewed interest.

(11:06):
I dunno if it's going to be yet anotherhype bubble or if this is going to be
something more sustained.
But I think part of what we need tolook at too are these newer technologies
such as, say when smartphones cameinto the corporate environment,
there's going to be this influx of thesedevices of interest. A lot of people,
all different levels of the company aregoing to want to see how do we bring
these devices in? Where arethey going to be usable?

(11:29):
How do we actually bring value toourselves and our customers with them?
And so studying those trends about howto onboard these devices and do it in a
way that makes sense and is secured,
I think that's going to be a bigthing really starting this year.
The other thing that Ireally thought about,
I've been given a lot of thought aboutis of course there is a tremendous amount

(11:49):
of talk these lastcouple of years about ai.
It's been there for years and years,for decades and decades, of course,
but these last couple ofyears with generative ai,
with chat GPT and midjourney and whatnot,
there's been a ton ofdiscourse around that,
and I have been seeing a number of talks,
and I've even given talks atRaytheon about the intersection of AI

(12:13):
and xr, and
there are a lot of securityconcerns around ai,
about the kind of information you'reputting into it and training it with about
the accuracy of the informationthat's providing you. Of course,
we've seen cases where it providesinaccurate or fabricated information.
Exactly. Hallucinations.

(12:35):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So now,
if this information isright in front of you,
right in front of your eyes and it isaffecting how you perceive the world
itself,
that's going to be a whole differentconsideration about our interaction with
this artificial intelligence.
So on the one hand,
having gen AI might reduce thecosts and the time necessary to

(12:59):
make AR experiences,but on the other hand,
the risks associated with introducing
information that has notbeen canned and previously
vetted and examined everything,that risk is so high.
Maybe that's prohibitive. So it's a

(13:25):
compromised and maybe we can'tlive with that compromise.
The costs are too great compared tothe benefits or proposed benefits.
Right? Yeah, agreed. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah, that's areally interesting point.
And it's not been years,it's just been months.

(13:48):
We're still at thebeginning of this cycle.
So do you think that thereare people in your company who
just are focused on AI andthey're going to come to you,
or maybe they already have and said,you're in visualization, James,

(14:10):
how are we going to work together?
Is there that kind of crossoveror collaboration potential with
you?
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
We company's made prettysignificant investments in AI research and development,
so we actually announced a product,I think it was just last year,
maybe a couple of years ago,

(14:31):
talking about our first actualcommercially released product that has AI
integrated into it.
And so we're always looking at whatis the next way that's going to bring
capability, efficiency, safety,
all these other considerations to ourbusiness and to our customers as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.This not, it sounds so new,

(14:51):
but you're right that machine learning and
related fields have been around. Well,
this is very exciting.
I hope to see the results of the
security committees, thematurity model very soon.

(15:12):
I think that'll be exciting and hopefully
open a lot of people's eyes abouthow to approach these delicate
subjects, and I hope that having
some solutions maybe will beappropriate in the network,
and we'll just have to takeit on a case by case basis.

(15:36):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Itis going to be a good time.
We're definitely going to be lookingat where security is currently a big
concern and where we mighttake it in the future.
So there's going to be a lotof good discussions coming up.
Yeah, I think security inthe past has been sort of a
headache, but now I think it's

(16:01):
addressing the security issues.
Like you had privacy by design and now
perhaps more and more
people proposing solutions are going tohave security by design built in from
the ground up.
And that's an important shift forthe enterprise, especially the,

(16:24):
I mean, I don't want to say,especially for highly sensitive,
all companies are sensitive abouttheir intellectual properties.
I've never run into a companythat said, oh, it doesn't matter.
Just let 'em havewhatever's on our network
doesn't exist. It's just not realistic.

(16:45):
I mean, looking at network security,
but even we've talked before aboutthe last summer's research project,
which had to do with really buildingin using the development tools
to build in security the rightsettings and the right library
calls to be able to build insecurityfrom the application, from the start.

(17:05):
Looking at that full spectrum across theboard of how we can better secure our
information and our systems andour end users. Exactly as you said,
it applies across the board.
It is not just from my industry or anyother secure industry, so to speak.
It really applies across the board.
Right.
That's a great place to summarize and

(17:28):
to conclude today's fireside chat.
Thank you so much for yourtime and making this possible.
I appreciate your insights, James.
Alright, thank you Christine.
Thank you.
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