In-Q-Tel (IQT), an independent investment fund created by the CIA and tasked with identifying innovative technology solutions that could aid the work of the US intelligence community, has signed a strategic investment and technology development agreement with NFC and mobile security specialist Tyfone.

The deal aims “to bring mobile security in cloud and NFC transactions for US government”, says Tyfone. In 2009 Tyfone launched the world’s first microSD-based NFC solution and has since extended its offering to include a mobile platform that can secure access to financial data and corporate and government networks as well as payments.

“Tyfone has an impressive patent portfolio and history of innovation in mobile financial, secure ID management, and NFC solutions,” says Jay Emmanuel, technology VP at IQT. “We believe that Tyfone’s technology has the potential to address a wide range of complex government and commercial secure identity challenges.”

“Cloud services that leverage mobile devices as a channel and a transaction tool have augmented the consumer experience by allowing anytime, anywhere access,” says Tyfone. “However, cloud services have also created significant, central points of vulnerability. The seamless addition of a smartcard to any existing mobile device using Tyfone’s technology brings distributed, strong authentication and secures access to any services in the cloud, on any network.”

“A key benefit of our strategic partnership with IQT is the ability to take our innovative mobile security and NFC platform to the US government,” explains Dr Siva Narendra, CEO and co-founder of Tyfone. “Our platform includes high volume manufactured hardware that brings smartcard security and NFC to virtually any mobile phone, tablet or PC. In addition, our mobile platform’s software has processed over 7m secure financial transactions, and we look forward to extending it to IQT’s government customers.”

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