British chip designer ARM Holdings said on Monday it had bought Dutch firm Offspark, a specialist in security software for the Internet of Things. Offspark's PolarSSL technology is deployed in sensor modules, communication modules and smartphones, ARM said, and buying the group would add its security and software cryptography to its IoT platform, designed to link billions of devices online. As security is a requirement for all IoT deployments, this will help developers using the ARM mbed platform to design and build IoT products with communication security and software cryptography.

PolarSSL is an embedded Transport Layer Security (TLS) solution. It will form the core of the ARM mbed communication security and software cryptography strategy and will be rebranded as ARM mbed TLS. The technology will remain open source and will be made available to developers for commercial use.

ARM mbed TLS will be available for standalone use and as part of mbed OS, providing support for TLS and DTLS optimized for embedded devices and complements the Cryptobox technology of mbed OS that enables secure execution and storage. mbed TLS not only targets embedded devices but will continue to expand with features for the non-embedded arena as well. ARM will release mbed OS under an Apache 2.0 license which will include mbed TLS, Thread, and other key technologies toward the end of 2015.