- Periphery is an easy-to-embed, military-grade threat management system for embedded technologies in critical infrastructure and defence.
- The predominant strategy in cybersecurity involves monitoring network-based activity, which overlooks most security indicators and is also frequently ineffective due to encryption.
- Instead, Periphery’s agents embed a lightweight image of its proprietary AI model locally on each device, allowing them to detect and respond to anomalous activity in real-time, ensuring uninterrupted protection even when the device is offline.
Website: https://www.periphery.security/
What is Periphery?
Periphery is an easy-to-embed, military-grade threat management system for embedded technologies in critical infrastructure and defence that constantly monitors, understands, and adapts to new threats. Periphery’s agents are trained by its Central AI, before a condensed image of the model is stored on the device itself, allowing it to detect and prevent anomalous behaviour autonomously, even in a closed or air-gapped network, or when the device is offline. This real-time intelligence means manufacturers can embed military-grade security directly into their products, future-proofing their devices against emerging threats and evolving regulations.
Toby Wilmington, co-founder and CEO of Periphery, and former NATO cybersecurity expert, said: “With the proliferation of connected devices, embedded systems within critical infrastructure have routinely become a target for malicious attacks. Centralised network-based monitoring is no longer sufficient to protect this device-layer architecture. We founded Periphery to embed sophisticated AI detection directly within the device itself, allowing us to offer unparalleled, real-time protection without compromising performance, even when the device is offline.”
Want to be featured as TechRound’s Startup of the Week? Find out more about this weekly feature, and how to get involved, here.
What Makes Periphery Unique?
Many device-layer architectures have been exposed as vulnerable, especially those that rely on signature-based protection or centralised detection. Periphery directly addresses this critical gap by fundamentally shifting the defence paradigm: it embeds military-grade, AI-driven intelligence directly within the devices themselves.
Periphery’s agents are trained by its Central AI before a condensed image of the model is stored on the device itself, allowing it to detect and prevent anomalous behaviour autonomously, even when offline. The Central AI consists of evolving machine learning models built upon a foundation of collected threat intelligence and data harvested from an extensive network of honeypot devices. The intelligence means that Periphery can flag threats in real-time, rather than months.
Is There A Market For These Kinds of Threat Management Systems?
By 2030, there will be 40 billion connected devices globally, including in industries like energy, healthcare, transport, and defence. The escalating proliferation of these connected devices, coupled with a new era of geopolitical cyber warfare, presents an unprecedented and urgent cybersecurity challenge. The geopolitical landscape is increasingly volatile, with nation-state actors now routinely targeting the embedded systems within critical infrastructure and defence technologies. These adversaries have largely shifted their goals to downtime rather than data theft, using it as a primary means of ransom or disruption.
In parallel, regulatory frameworks are catching up. The EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), for example, will introduce mandatory lifecycle-wide cybersecurity requirements for manufacturers and suppliers of connected devices. As a result, the global IoT security market is forecast to grow from $24.2 billion in 2024 to $56.2 billion by 2029.
Periphery’s solution is designed to minimise damage and downtime without compromising productivity:
- Time to onboarding and installation is 1 day
- Real-time detection of security breaches versus industry average of 6 months+
- Comply with new regulations within hours rather than months.
What Products Does Periphery Have?
Insights is a risk analysis for a device’s software bill of materials (SBOM) to identify vulnerabilities in third-party and open-source components. This includes analysing outdated libraries, dependencies, and potential software supply chain risks. By identifying these risks, manufacturers can proactively address weaknesses that attackers may exploit.
Detect is Periphery’s real-time threat monitoring solution, purpose-built for XIoT devices operating in dynamic environments. Unlike traditional EDR solutions designed for enterprise endpoints, Detect is tailored for IoT, focusing on the device layer for Linux and the application layer for RTOS. It provides continuous visibility into the evolving threat landscape, helping organisations maintain operational integrity and security compliance.
