Secure Thingz, vendor of security, microcontrollers and embedded systems, and Data I/O, announced on Wednesday their collaborative, end-to-end Internet of Things (IoT) security solution is now in production. A demonstration of the solution, which features Secure Thingz’ Secure Deploy architecture integrated into the Data I/O SentriX security provisioning platform.
To support this growth, Secure Thingz and Data I/O are working with silicon vendors, OEMs, and other members of the supply ecosystem for easier delivery and implementation through an end-to-end solution that starts with secure elements or secure MCUs and includes secure development, manufacturing and downstream provisioning.
The Secure Deploy architecture is an advanced integrated solution for delivering the supply chain of trust. The Secure Deploy architecture has been designed to enhance and simplify security implementations across the lifecycle of product creation, manufacturing, and management. This enables organizations to build upon secure foundations to protect their intellectual property across the life cycle of their products.
Data I/O’s SentriX platform is a comprehensive, flexible and cost-effective system to provision roots of trust in security conscious markets such as automotive and IoT. The SentriX platform provisions secure elements, authentication ICs and secure microcontrollers one device at a time. This enables customers of all sizes and demand profiles to take full advantage of the latest silicon-enabled security features without disruptive change to their production and logistics flows.
The solution leverages Secure Thingz’ Secure Deploy architecture and the Data I/O SentriX security provisioning platform. The Secure Deploy architecture features a high-security framework, ensures simple management of critical intellectual property within the development process, and secures key management targeted for development, manufacturing and applications (“Root of Trust”).
The architecture integrates seamlessly into the SentriX platform. The SentriX security provisioning platform enables a cost-effective hardware-based security approach for IoT OEMs and electronic manufacturers of any size and volume. T
he SentriX platform is installed in distribution at Avnet Germany enabling OEMs to secure their devices with no minimal order quantity. The companies first announced their collaboration at embedded world 2017.
According to ABI Research, by 2022, an estimated 70 percent of the global 57 billion connected devices will be targeted for the IoT. A critical part of the success of the IoT will be based on the ability to trust the devices and ensure vulnerabilities cannot be leveraged to disrupt IoT systems and weaponize devices for malicious attacks. Most industry experts acknowledge the best security starts with hardware and the creation of a Root of Trust (RoT) in each device.
“Often times, security is rendered later, and not always successfully. Yet trust must start with the device, in the hardware itself, if it is to be effective,” said Michela Menting, Digital Security Research Director, ABI Research. “Inherently, this starting point is with a Root of Trust, a security primitive capable of performing services such as authentication and attestation, by providing a trusted computing base that holds private keys, product certificates, and secure boot functionality.”
According to Menting, there is little doubt that secure hardware will form the supporting foundation for greater trust in the IoT. The varying and diverse use cases will require the availability of different form factors, with secure elements that can offer lightweight, single-task functions, to more resource-intensive, multi-function secure microcontrollers (MCUs) capable of serving numerous different applications.
The market for secure elements and secure MCUs is anticipated to grow to 4 billion units in the next 5 years.
“One year ago, we outlined our vision with Data I/O to help secure billions of connected devices,” said Krishna Anne, CEO of Secure Thingz. “Secure Thingz was created on the premise that the best approach is building in security from inception and developing a robust chain of trust across the entire product lifecycle. We also believe security needs to be a shared responsibility across the supply chain, and our collaboration with Data I/O is proof that together with the ecosystem we can provide innovative solutions to better protect our connected world.”
“As the Internet-of-Things market grows and attacks become increasingly prevalent, OEMs of all sizes must have a cost-effective and integrated method to enable hardware-based security from product design through manufacturing,” said Anthony Ambrose, president and CEO of Data I/O Corporation. “Data I/O is excited to partner with Secure Thingz on the SentriX security provisioning platform enabling broad support for secure elements and secure MCUs to democratize security for OEMs of all sizes and volumes.”
