Semiconductor Engineering highlights side-channel attacks

Brian Bailey of Semiconductor Engineering recently penned an article highlighting the danger side-channel attacks pose to connected devices and systems.

“As the world begins to take security more seriously, it becomes evident that a device is only as secure as its weakest component. No device can be made secure by protecting against a single kind of attack,” Bailey explained. “Encryption and root of trust can add additional layers of protection. But even then, the system may not be secure.”

Let’s talk about the future of mobile payments

Mobile payments currently offer a number of benefits for consumers, retailers and financial institutions. However, next-gen mobile payments will shape the contours of a new retail paradigm that can help redefine the traditional brick-and-mortar experience.

Indeed, shopping will one day become a truly interactive experience, with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi beacons scanning digital profiles, stored in the cloud and accessed on mobile devices and wearables, to generate recommendations in real time.

Simplifying tokenization for mobile payments

Martin Cox, a Strategic Product Marketing at Rambus Bell ID, recently observed that technologies such as tokenization are steadily evolving as the mobile payments ecosystem matures.

“Now a security requirement for paying by smartphone, banks are faced with the challenge of implementing and managing tokenization,” he explained.

Tom’s Hardware highlights DPA countermeasures

Earlier this week, we announced that NVIDIA had licensed Rambus’ Differential Power Analysis (DPA) countermeasures to protect its visual computing products against side-channel attacks.

As Nathaniel Mott of Tom’s Hardware reports, Rambus’ countermeasures will help protect NVIDIA’s GPUs from side-channel attacks that steal encryption keys by measuring the power consumption of a device.

Apple Pay goes live in Japan

Apple Pay went live in Japan earlier this week, allowing consumers to use their iPhones and Apple Watches to pay for goods and services with a simple touch.

IBM Japan – using Rambus Bell ID’s complete token service provider (TSP) technology – will support Japanese banks with Apple Pay integration and mobile payments security across a range of international payment platforms and, importantly, the FeliCa (Felicity Card) regional scheme.

Silicon Republic talks Lensless Smart Sensors (LSS)

Silicon Republic journalists recently put together a list of 13 pioneering technology projects currently underway at Cork’s Tyndall National Institute, including vibration energy harvesting, PiezoMEMS, Micro-transfer printing, electrochemical energy storage and Lensless Smart Sensors (LSS).