Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price has announced that Australian cyber security company Penten has secured contracts worth $2.2 million to deliver cyber defences for Army through the Defence Innovation Hub.
The contracts will see Penten develop new capability to the Australian Army to send communications over unsecured networks, monitor network traffic and mitigate attacks on its network.
Canberra-based SME Penten has grown from four to seventy employees in just four years and exports to three countries. Penten was recently named Australian Business of the Year at the Telstra Business Awards.
CEO Matthew Wilson told ADM that the company expects to complete the contracts by the end of the year.
“Innovation is critical to build and sustain the ADF’s capability edge,” Minister Price said. “Australia benefits from an industrial base of many agile small to medium enterprises like Penten.”
Penten is delivering capabilities using Artificial Intelligence to identify, disrupt and trap digital adversaries and is creating secure mobility technologies to help government build a connected and integrated security workforce.
“We are excited and thankful for the faith Defence has shown in Penten and Australian SMEs to deliver new world leading technology to the Australian Army first and then let us export it to the world," Wilson said.
“Initiatives like the Defence Innovation Hub support Australian industry to create sovereign advantage for Australia, and ensure that companies like Penten are able to continue to invest and grow high-end engineering and software development jobs here in Australia.”
The contracts awarded to Penten were selected as part of Army Innovation Day 2018.