Steven Woo, VP of solutions marketing and distinguished inventor at Rambus, recently sat down with Anne Fisher of Embedded Systems Engineering to discuss the burgeoning security requirements of a rapidly growing Internet of Things (IoT).
According to Woo, the semiconductor industry now realizes security is a critical goal that needs to be treated as a first class design parameter.
“Some [companies] choose to do everything in software because it’s relatively easy to deploy and layer on top of existing systems,” Woo told the publication.
“The problem is software-only protection can be hacked, and we’ve seen numerous cases of that in the past year alone. This goes back to the point about treating security as a first-class design parameter—legacy systems often weren’t designed with software security in mind, so the system doesn’t enable software to do the best job possible for securing the system.”
In contrast, says Woo, a silicon-based hardware root of trust provides a range of robust security options.
“From the moment power is applied to [a] system or device, the first thing that comes up is the hardware, and at this point the chip or system can be attacked. Solutions exist that use hardware as a basis for security, but having hardware integrated into the silicon increases the security of [both] the silicon and system,” he explained.
“[Yes], there are tradeoffs to be made, and in some cases people will be willing to live with lower levels of security provided by software-only solutions. But as you begin to interconnect more and more devices, some are inevitably going to want higher levels of security, so providing hardware security and a hardware root of trust is going to be very important going forward.”
As Woo points out, that is precisely why Rambus CryptoManager offers chip manufacturers an integrated hardware-based root of trust.
“On the surface, it provides some very interesting capabilities, but when you dig a little deeper and you look at how devices are used you begin to realize the elements contained within CryptoManager actually offer a very powerful tool kit that allows you do to things beyond what you might [have thought] about initially,” he continued.
“[For example], CryptoManager has a hardware root of trust that provides a secure foundation for connected communication. This core allows you to very securely enable and disable features and functionality in the chip that core sits in, and secures the chip throughout the lifecycle from manufacturing through deployment and end of life.”
Essentially, says Woo, the secure core acts like a vault door, barring access to all unauthorized entrants, save those with the correct combination. Meaning, a semiconductor device is secured throughout its lifecycle, with managed keys effectively locking and unlocking functionality.
“One thing that CryptoManager enables is that as the silicon travels from facility to facility—for example, from fab to wafer cutting to die packaging to testing packaged die to fabrication to integration into a device like a phone—is to ensure that the semiconductor device itself has manufacturer-specific keys put in there that no one else can get to or manufacturer-specific capabilities enabled or disabled,” he explained.
“A great example is managing access to the JTAG port of a chip. During device test, you need access to the JTAG port. The problem with JTAG and other debug ports is that it is almost like having the master keys to the house. [Via debug ports] you can get deep access to many areas of a chip, and once the device is in the field you may not want people to get access to some or all of these areas.”
In addition, manufacturers can choose to activate the debug port only when the device is being debugged. The port can then be de-activated once it leaves the factory.
“[Meaning], once the device leaves, say, the phone manufacturing facility and gets deployed into the field, you can actually enable and disable features in the silicon itself, so that you can now think about new kinds of business models where carriers can enable and disable features on the phone,” Woo added.
“Or you could enable or disable certain kinds of content to be played on that phone so you get this interesting way of looking at new revenue models and usage models—and it all relies on the same CryptoManager platform and toolkit that manages keys to enable and disable functionality.”
Keep reading: Hardware Root of Trust: Everything you need to know »
Leave a Reply