ARM TrustZone CryptoCell - A Comprehensive Security Solution

If you are interested in learning more about security and ARM TrustZone CryptoCell technologies, check out our recent webinar Watch now: How to protect your systems with ARM TrustZone CryptoCell.

Connected devices have become a vital part of our lives, from our homes to our offices and factories, even improving our health and fitness. However, these IoT devices have also become an increasingly attractive target for cyber criminals. More connected devices mean more attack vectors and more possibilities for hackers to target us.

A previous blog post ‘Securing the embedded IoT world’ by jim_wallace explores some of the key attack vectors and explains how appropriate security must be baked into every system, at every level. It is clear that we have started to depend on the ever-increasing connectivity around us. We expect more speed, more personalization and greater reliability with anytime-anywhere access. For this to continue, security must be an integral part of the platform and be treated as a hygiene factor.

As devices become more connected, there are lots of things to think about surrounding security.

• Connected devices will need an identity provisioning process and as they move into active service they will need to be commissioned. This will allow both the relying party and the connected device to authenticate each other and to enforce a policy related to the control and exchange of information.
• Connected IoT devices also generate, store and communicate sensitive information. Which if compromised may negatively affect users’ privacy and/or the financial performance of a service provider. These assets (belonging to operators and users) need to be well protected.
• Manufacturers will also want to protect their research and engineering investment, as well as their brand reputation against the damage caused by knockoff and counterfeited devices.
• Finally, renewability and update-ability will be key to future-proof these devices with the ever increasing set of threats and attacks these devices will face over their lifetime in the field.

Developing secure platforms is not easy. Designing and implementing these security solutions requires high levels of expertise and lots of experience to get them right.

ARM TrustZone Technologies

ARM® TrustZone® technologies enable you to do just that and focus your valuable engineering resource on differentiation.

A TrustZone-enabled system allows you to perform isolation between secure and non-secure environments. TrustZone isolates software stacks from other potentially malicious, ‘normal-world’ software.

ARM TrustZone CryptoCell IP complements TrustZone and enables even greater separation of assets through hardware, ensuring different levels of trust across different suppliers in the value chain.

The integration of both these technologies creates a tightly coupled, high-performance security solution combining hardware and software components.

ARM TrustZone CryptoCell

ARM TrustZone CryptoCell provides a suite of security services that include cryptography, roots of trust management and assets protection in-transit, at-rest and in-use. The ARM TrustZone CryptoCell package includes hardware (RTL), on chip software and off chip tools. This allows the establishment of trust between the parties involved in various IoT ecosystems (manufacturers, service providers, users), the trust needed in the manufacturing lifecycle and the trust needed in the field.

During a device’s lifecycle, multiple entities will be involved in the process of; making it, shipping it, using it and End-of-life (EOL)-ing it. ARM TrustZone CryptoCell is key to this lifecycle process and provides a rich set of security services to protect the integrity, authenticity and confidentiality of various assets (code and data) belonging to different stakeholders (e.g. semiconductor vendors, OEMs, service providers, users) by associating a different security policy with each of the device’s lifecycle states.

ARM TrustZone CryptoCell is already protecting your systems today.  It is used in millions of devices around the world—enabling and shielding critical assets and high-value content. A good example of this is the systems SK Telecom have in place today.

“SK Telecom has wide range of IoT systems, these systems include smart factory and asset tracking management as well as a range of smart home applications. Once gathered from multiple sensors the data for the IoT systems is processed and analyzed at SK Telecom’s ThingPlug IoT platform to inform the stakeholders of the IoT systems. Much of this data needs to be securely protected and SK Telecom uses CryptoCell technology to do just that for a number of applications.

These secure systems will enhance productivity and management efficiency while maintaining a safer, more secure environment.”

Moojin Woo, Team Leader, SK Telecom

If you are interested in learning more about security and ARM TrustZone CryptoCell technologies, check out our recent webinar Watch now: How to protect your systems with ARM TrustZone CryptoCell.