Combating Counterfeit Chips


The harsh reality is that today, the authenticity of chips is often impossible to guarantee. The counterfeit chip market is sizeable and growing with a worldwide value estimated at $75B in 2019. Those counterfeits are believed to have been integrated into more than $169B of electronic devices. Recent confirmed incidents of counterfeit parts found in electronic systems include defibrillators, ai... » read more

The Evolution Of Ethernet To 800G And MACsec Encryption


Ethernet is a frame-based data communication technology that employs variable-sized frames to carry a data payload. This contrasts with long-haul Optical Transport Networks (OTN) that use fixed-sized frames. The size of Ethernet frames ranges from a minimum of 60 bytes up to 1500 bytes, and in case of jumbo frames, up to 9K bytes. A frame is a Layer 2 data container with the physical addresses ... » read more

Scaling Anti-Tamper Protection To Meet Escalating Threats


Anti-tamper tends to be one of those catchall phrases encompassing any countermeasure on a security chip. A more precise definition would be that anti-tamper protection is any collection of countermeasures that serves to thwart an adversary’s attempt to monitor or affect the correct operation of a chip or a security core within a chip. Given that, it can be useful to think about a hierarchy o... » read more

Securing Data In Motion With MACsec


For end-to-end security of data, it must be secured both when “at rest” (processed or stored in a connected device) and when it is “in motion” (communicated between connected devices). For data at rest, a hardware root of trust anchored in silicon provides that foundation upon which all data and device security is built. For example, the security of applications builds on an uncompromis... » read more

Implementing Strong Security For AI/ML Accelerators


A number of critical security vulnerabilities affecting high-performance CPUs identified in recent years have rocked the semiconductor industry. These high-profile vulnerabilities inadvertently allowed malicious programs to access sensitive data such as passwords, secret keys and other secure assets. The real-world risks of silicon complexity The above-mentioned vulnerabilities are primaril... » read more

Security Is Key When AI Meets 5G


5G represents a revolution in mobile technology with performance that will rival that of wireline networks. Relative to its 4G predecessor, 5G promises 10X the data rate, 100X the efficiency, and 1000X the capacity, at 1/100th the latency. With 1Gbps speed at 1ms latency, 5G makes it possible to offer a host of real-time applications and services. Real-time is critical, because in parallel t... » read more

Unprotected IoT Devices Threaten Consumer Privacy And Safety


Unprotected IoT devices continue to pose a disturbing threat to both consumer privacy and security. For example, a camera installed in the Memphis bedroom of a young girl was recently hijacked by a hacker who seized control of the device to spy on the 8-year-old, taunt her with music and encourage destructive behavior. Another infamous instance of a camera falling victim to a hacker was reporte... » read more

California’s IoT Law Is A Good Start, But More Needs To Be Done


Passed by former California governor Jerry Brown, cybersecurity law SB-327 went into effect on Jan. 1. This proactive legislation requires manufacturers to equip IoT devices with “reasonable” security features to prevent unauthorized access, modification and data leaks. Specifically, SB-327 requires manufacturers to implement a unique preprogrammed (default) password for each device. Additi... » read more

Bricked IoT Devices Are Casualties Of Lax Semiconductor Security


Earlier this summer, a new strain of destructive malware known as Silex began to spread and effectively brick unprotected IoT devices. Although victims of Silex theoretically can resurrect their IoT devices by manually reinstalling factory firmware, most remain wary of an installation process that is often time consuming and complicated. Moreover, many victims assume their device has suffered a... » read more

Taking A Closer Look At Side Channel Attacks


In last month’s Semiconductor Engineering article, we explored the basics of side channel attacks (SCAs). As we discussed, all cryptographic algorithms are subject to side channel attacks, with vulnerabilities extending across all platforms and form factors. In this article, we’ll be taking a closer look at the two primary categories of side channel attacks: simple power analysis (SPA) and ... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →