Securing the IoT: Part 2 - Secure boot as root of trust

Yann Loisel and Stephane di Vito, Maxim Integrated
embedded.com (January 11, 2015)

Security of electronic devices is a must in today’s interconnected world. There is plenty of evidence [1] to show that when the security of a device on the IoT is compromised, you must be cautious, even suspicious of that device and the whole IoT. You most certainly cannot rely on a hacked device for secure data exchange, processing, or storage.

In Part 1 of this article, we focused on the identification of security risks and argued that the best security is embedded in electronic devices. We emphasized countermeasures, specifically public key-based algorithms.

In Part 2 we concentrate on a secure boot, which is the “root of trust” and the cornerstone of an electronic device’s trustworthiness. Note that this discussion assumes that the reader understands the difference between a private and public key in cryptography. You can refer to Part 1 to find plenty of discussion in a Google search of the terms. Here we will demonstrate how device security can be implemented conveniently and how devices can even be updated in the field. The DeepCover secure microcontrollers will serve as trust-enabling example devices to secure the IoT.

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