The new Security Solution based on hardware helps Silicon-level Secure IoT devices I can certainly be identified in two categories: small embedded things (like sensors in the industrial control environment) for low capacity and more powerful edge devices (such as routers, smart TVs, in-car entertainment systems etc.). According to Gartner, 30 billion IoT devices will be in use by 2020 and, according to Statista, by 2025, this will rise to approximately 75.5 billion. All types, smart edge devices and dumb sensors, need better safety than most get at the moment.
But market growth figures show that the highest number of IoT devices to be used in the coming years are still to be deployed. It offers the chance to secure future IoT if steps are now taken. The difference is important here between the low capacity sensor IoT devices and the larger capacity edge devices. The former can not hold protection and must be spread around the embedded devices. The latter, however, are capable of ensuring their own health.
Micron has announced a new silicon-based security as a service system for edge devices–the Authenta Key Management Service–for the latter class of edge devices. The service starts with the manufacturer downloading Micron’s new Authenta flash, using existing standard NVM sockets. The new Authenta Key Management system can either exploit existing slots or replace older Authenta flash memory–no hardware reengineering is needed from the device manufacturer.
The new service “allows installed Authenta-enabled devices to be switched on by a cloud-based service, which mitigates some of the biggest challenges and complexities of securing devices in an environment’ all connected.’ “They typically focus on one of the three common practices,” says Micron: “to incorporate cost-effective, expensive and difficult-to-scale safe elements; to exploit a stable SoC key injection that produces a fragmented architecture; or simply not doing anything that positions devices below the requirements of market and regulation.” The new KMS software enables this protection to be enabled and controlled by a cloud-based service on the edge computer after deployment. The unique capabilities include no additional chip specifications, safe code and data installation at a manufacturing location but managed after shipment, (effectively protected supply chain), security hardness by permanent ROM areas and versatile provisioning including the binding of field credentials after deployment.
Tom Katsioulas, member of the board of directors of GSA Trusted Supply Chain and Head of TrustChain Operations at Siemens Inc, Mentor said that the electronics industry has to tackle today’s fragmented and fragile IoT supply chain security concerns. “We welcome the introduction by Micron of the Authenta Key Management Service to offer early provenance and traceability in the supply chain and to provide trusted device services.” The IoT security of such an advanced device solution requires that a wide range of devices are adopted in the industry. Micron was founded in 1978 in Boise, Idaho. This focuses on semiconductor manufacturing including random flash drives and access memory. In 2006, it founded IM Flash Technologies together with Intel to manufacture NAND flash memory. It was 105 of the Fortune 500 in 2018, previously number 150.
It therefore has the experience and background of radically changing the way edge infrastructure is managed and already has an awe-inspiring alliance with Authenta, including Fornetix and Rambus, Siemens Mentor and Secure Platforms, Azure and AWS, Xilinx and NXP.
