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Digital Holograms - The key to trust & scalability in IoT
Trustonic explores how digital holograms could be the answer to our IoT security issues I
t is predicted that by 2020 there will be more than 20 billion connected devices
worldwide, and this number is only going to grow. To keep up with the pace of change and realise the true value of current and future IoT use-cases, the technology needs to be scalable. But there can be no scalability without addressing the fundamentals: connectivity, security and trust.
ENABLING TRUSTED DEVICE IDENTITY Due to the complexity of its value chain – with end-product devices often comprising a range of different chips and modules – IoT requires sophisticated and nuanced protection. Firstly, embedding a root of trust (RoT)
into a device at the start of its life is an effective mechanism for allowing a device to both identify itself and protect against attackers impersonating the device and generating fake sensor data. But this is only solving part of the
problem. For example, IoT devices often go through several stages before they are ready for the world and each of these needs to be traceable – otherwise we would not be able to distinguish between identical components being used in different devices, as they would all have equivalent roots of trust. Injecting a fresh RoT at each step of the
supply chain is one solution, but also a potentially expensive and lengthy process that does not necessarily fit the needs, business models or constraints of the IoT ecosystem. An ideal solution is to inject the RoT at silicon provider (SiP) level and make use of the security this provides at each step in the chain. This is where Digital Holograms come in.
ATTESTATION, AT EVERY STAGE Digital Holograms are essentially secure serial numbers, which are distributed to OEMs and ODMs. They are injected, to represent a specific lifecycle event, during manufacturing and stored in hardware. For example, on an ARMv8-M based device, they would typically be stored in a region of the flash protected by TrustZone. The holograms cannot be copied and used across multiple devices. This enables
24 OCTOBER 2018 | ELECTRONICS Figure 2:
Trusted, automated cloud enrolment
Figure 1:
Digital Hologram containing key, secure information
device attestation, protection from overproduction, cloning and tampering, supply chain integrity and trusted, autonomous cloud enrolment. For example, to record that a device has been assigned a specific model number, has passed through a QA process, or has been recalled or serviced, you could simply add a Digital Hologram.
signed by the device’s RoT and passed on to the cloud for validation. The integrity of the digital holograms is verified, along with both the number of holograms used at each stage in the production chain and details of the places that the device has passed through. All this data is then assembled into a report. With this information, the OEM can also detect overproduction if the digital holograms have been reused in chips and can take appropriate actions. On the flipside, if a device lacks the relevant digital holograms, or they are linked in the wrong order, the OEM can refuse device enrolment or notify the user that the device must be sent back to a customer service centre for further examination.
t e
“In the device world, establishing a RoT involves injecting a unique key at the heart of a device. This embeds trust by design to deliver unique device identities.”
During its lifecycle, a device may obtain
several Digital Holograms, each representing an individual event. If a step is missed, due to IP theft or overproduction, for example, then the faulty/counterfeit devices will miss one or more of the required Digital Holograms and the omission can easily be detected – either during a later stage of production or once the device is deployed in the field. The exact path a device takes from inception to the OEM is recorded when the Digital Holograms are installed, enabling manufacturing processes to be auditable and traceable. So, when the device attempts to enrol to the cloud, these holograms are collected,
p c t
Digital Holograms solve the genuine problem as to how OEMs can ascertain whether a device is legitimate and prevent counterfeits from connecting to their clouds. In combination with hardware protection of IP, this is one way to improve the security landscape of IoT.
To achieve scalability, we need to guarantee that data and signals
transmitted between devices originate from legitimate sources. With Digital Holograms, the attestation message is
g t
cryptographically linked in a blockchain, allowing service providers to verify the origin of the device and trace its lifecycle. In addition, OEMs can verify whether the device trying to enrol to their cloud is genuine or a counterfeit.
TRUSTED, AUTOMATED CLOUD ENROLMENT Trust in IoT should be a priority for everyone in the supply chain. If it is not possible to trust the components that make up a device, the devices that are connecting to our clouds or the data that they produce, the IoT industry has a big problem. Baking in security from the start and verifying it at each step in the chain addresses the fundamentals needed to build trust in IoT and achieve scalability in today’s increasingly connected world.
Trustonic
www.trustonic.com T: 01223 558527
/ ELECTRONICS
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