Synopsys White Paper on IoT Security - Introduces DesignWare Root-of-Trust Module

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Dec. 11, 2017 – As the internet of things (IoT) continues its climb to a trillion devices, there has been many articles and books written on the need for securing those devices. With all the IoT gear that I seem to be picking up as Christmas presents, I feel like I'm doing my part to help the market get there, but I have to say, I sure hope the SoC designers that created those devices have been reading and listening to the need for IoT security.

And, it does indeed seem that more companies are paying attention to the need for integrated security in their IoT devices. It all starts with something called Root-of-Trust (RoT) and now one of the bigger IP players in the industry, Synopsys, has written a white paper on RoT and is backing it up by introducing a new DesignWare module targeted at providing IoT security IP for SoC devices. The new module is called 'tRoot H5 Hardware Secure Module'. More on that is a second, but first let's do a quick review of what we mean by RoT.

As a quick reminder of why we need to secure our IoT devices, one only need remember back to late 2016 when researchers were able to demonstrate how hackers could possibly put people into harm's way by remotely accessing a Tesla Model S car's control system. The researchers were able to access and control the engine, braking system, sunroof, door locks, trunk, side-view mirrors and more. They did this by hacking into the car's infotainment and WiFi connections which then got them access to the car's controller area network (CAN) bus. The good news is that these were benevolent researchers who then worked with Tesla to close the security holes. But what if it had been someone more nefarious? Enough said.
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