The latest news coming out of the security world is the link up of Micron’s Authenta™ secure memory product and Rambus’s CryptoManager™ infrastructure to add greater protection for industrial IoT devices, as well as medical, automotive, smart cities, and connected homes applications.
This combo of security muscle provides the carte blanche for Micron to securely provision cryptographic data at any point in the extended semiconductor manufacturing supply chain and throughout its lifecycle.
In effect, the benefits to the end customer include reducing time to market and development expenses, while simultaneously providing a stronger security model for end devices.
The way this works is simple, integrated and secure. Micron’s Authenta technology places secure element features right on to flash memory. It protects an IoT device’s integrity by monitoring and safeguarding software that runs on the device.
The Micron Authenta partner, Rambus CryptoManager Infrastructure, plays its role by securely provisioning sensitive cryptographic data to devices during the manufacturing process. In so doing, it enables simple, secure end-to-end authenticated solutions for easy device management and connectivity.
At any semiconductor manufacturing site, the CryptoManager Infrastructure provides secure manufacturing control that begins with the Root Authority. Kept in a secure facility, the Root Authority is an air gapped, offline provisioning server that authorizes all provisioning activity, manages high value keys, and enables all CryptoManager transactions.
The Root Authority encrypts and signs all keys, manufacturing information and provisioning instructions. An authorized administrator then imports them into the Control Center for distribution to authorized provisioning appliances in a manufacturer’s cloud connected factory network. The Control Center distributes keys and production authorizations to the appliances which in turn provide encrypted instructions, keys and device.
All told, the CryptoManager Infrastructure system’s assignments are to securely manage provisioning and device personalization, as well as high value key management throughout a semiconductor’s life cycle. Emphasis is placed on high availability, performance, and security in all of CryptoManager Infrastructure’s components.
Hardware Security Modules or HSMs in each node of the CryptoManager Infrastructure strengthen security throughout the system. HSMs are FIPS 140-2 level 3 compliant and provide tamper resistant secure storage. Plus, they serve as a secure computation environment for the necessary cryptographic computation and sensitive operations in the CryptoManager Infrastructure.
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