IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020


The "IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020" became a U.S. law on 12/4/2020.   The legislation was passed by unanimous consent by the Senate and the House of Representatives. Congress.Gov states: "This bill requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to take specified steps to increase cybersecurity for Internet of ... » read more

Car Industry Changing Under The Hood


After an initial burst of autonomous activity, the automotive ecosystem regrouped, re-evaluated its goals, and is now ready to begin deploying new technologies made possible by modern development approaches and forward-looking vehicle architectures. The pandemic hurt vehicle sales in 2020, but it also gave the OEMs a chance to catch their breath. Panic over announcements from other carmakers... » read more

Washington Sets IoT Cybersecurity Standards


On December 4th, 2020, the “IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020” became law. The bipartisan legislation sets a minimum security standard for IoT devices that the US government procures. In an increasingly rare act of bipartisanship, the bill was “passed by unanimous consent” in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, demonstrating the importance of IoT security. The l... » read more

Managing Device Certificates Is Becoming Harder


As the number of devices connected to the Internet balloons, certificate management is becoming more complex, more essential, and significantly harder to keep track of. There are many different certificates for many different purposes, not to mention certificates that are unique to each device. And the lifetimes of those certificates may vary, making it even tougher to keep operating certifi... » read more

Security Breaches And The Defensive Mindset


Over the Christmas break, the biggest security breach ever came to light. It is assumed to be instigated by a foreign entity. The breach is known mostly as SolarWinds. SolarWinds produces network management software called Orion that is used by...well, almost everyone. The attackers inserted a backdoor into an Orion software update. You know how the operating system on your PC or Mac gets autom... » read more

Security Verification Of Rambus’ CryptoManager Root Of Trust By Tortuga Logic


The confidentiality and integrity of cryptographic key material is critical to maintaining system security. A hardware root of trust, such as the Rambus CryptoManager Root of Trust, is designed to securely generate, store, and employ cryptographic keys. Tortuga Logic has independently verified the policies surrounding access to keys stored within registers in the CryptoManager Root of Trust usi... » read more

CEO Outlook: 2021


The new year will be one of significant transition and innovation for the chip industry, but there are so many new applications and market segments that broad generalizations are becoming less meaningful. Unlike in years past, where sales of computers or smart phones were a good indication of how the chip industry would fare, end markets have both multiplied and splintered, greatly increasin... » read more

Why It’s So Hard To Stop Cyber Attacks On ICs


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss security risks across multiple market segments with Helena Handschuh, security technologies fellow at Rambus; Mike Borza, principal security technologist for the Solutions Group at Synopsys; Steve Carlson, director of aerospace and defense solutions at Cadence; Alric Althoff, senior hardware security engineer at Tortuga Logic; and Joe Kiniry, princi... » read more

Make Hardware Strong With CWE


What is a weakness? And why should we care? These questions are relevant in probably any field or context you may think of, well beyond engineering or electronics. While in some cases the first-level answers might be obvious, in many others they are not. Generally, weaknesses are considered bad things that can lead to malfunctions, injuries, and other undesirable situations. In many cases, they... » read more

New Security Approaches, New Threats


New and different approaches to security are gaining a foothold as the life expectancy for advanced chips increases, and as emerging technologies such as quantum computing threaten to crack even the most complex encryption schemes. These approaches include everything from homomorphic encryption, where data is processed without being decrypted, to different ways of sending and receiving data ... » read more

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