Did you know that a single human genome sequence constitutes an approximate 140-gigabyte data file? Not surprisingly, it took 10 years and $3 billion to completely map the first human genome. Fortunately, as Datanami’s Alex Woodie confirms, the medical establishment has come a long way since its big genomics breakthrough in 2003.
Search Results for: medical
CryptoFirewall Verifier and Consumable Core
Security
CryptoFirewall Verifier and Consumable Core
The CryptoFirewall Verifier and Consumable cores are hardware-based security blocks designed to provide secure authentication and reduce counterfeiting business risk for mass-market consumables and peripherals. For consumable devices like printers, medical devices, batteries and automotive components where extending ‘time to clone’ is essential to business success, CryptoFirewall cores deliver robust anti-counterfeiting for revenue, safety, and brand protection.
Contact
Product BriefHow CryptoFirewall Verifier Core works
The Verifier core is a robust, anti-counterfeiting hardware core designed to provide authentication with the highest level of tamper resistance.
The core can be used in conjunction with the CryptoFirewall Consumable core as part of a complete consumable protection system. It integrates into the device SoC and communicates to the CryptoFirewall Consumable core to authenticate and verify system integrity of the consumable or peripheral.
The Verifier core monitors the balances of the usage counters within the Consumable core, denying authentication once the balance reaches zero.
Anti-Tampering Technologies
The design of chip anti-tamper protection needs to adapt and scale with rising threats. Adversaries range from high school hackers to well-funded state actors. Given the threats, it’s useful to think about anti-tamper countermeasures as a hierarchy of safeguards that parallel the type, effort and expense of attacks. Watch this webinar to learn the eleven kinds of tampering attacks and their required skills and resources, and countermeasures for each of these attacks.
How CryptoFirewall Consumable Core works
Using field-proven, integrated anti-tamper security technologies, the Consumable core works in conjunction with either the CryptoFirewall Verifier core or Verifier firmware to provide consumers and manufacturers assurance of authenticity.
Secure device authentication: Each consumable or peripheral contains a low-cost security chip with the Consumable core that communicates with either a CryptoFirewall Verifier core or with Verifier firmware on the system-side SoC to authenticate and verify system integrity.
Secure usage authentication: The core contains usage counters with balances to authorize and track usage. Balances can be securely decremented with each use, and counters cannot be reset without a strict authentication process.
The Importance of Chiplet Security
Chiplets are gaining significant traction as they deliver numerous benefits beyond what can be accomplished with a monolithic SoC in a time of slowing transistor scaling. However, disaggregating SoCs into multiple chiplets increases the attack surface which adversaries can exploit to penetrate safeguards to data and hardware. With chiplets, the risks of hardware-based trojans and exploits such as man-in-the-middle attacks all rise. To realize the many benefits of chiplets, designers should use a design for security approach, and implement security safeguards anchored in hardware.
Solution Offerings
Features
Deliverables
Features
Part of a complete solution to protect against a broad range of attacks including:
- Software bug vulnerabilities
- Reverse engineering
- Glitching/fault induction
- Power analysis (SPA/DPA)
- Test/debug mode exploits
- Protocol attacks
- Microprobing
- Cryptanalysis
- Focused ion beam analysis
- Imaging/microscopy
- Software emulation
- Insider attacks
Secure device authentication
Secure usage authentication
Deliverables
Gate-level netlist targeted to vendor-specified cell library
Full technical documentation:
- Interface specifications
- Integration guides
- Validation guides
- Manufacturing test and personalization specs
Test and Verification:
- Verification models
- Emulation boards
- Functional verification tests
- System and validation tests
Resources
News
Can Big Data take on cancer?
Writing for Forbes, Bernard Marr terms the fight against cancer as the “Holy Grail” of modern medicine.
“Almost everyone will be affected at some point in their lives, either personally or by proxy through a loved one,” he explained. “So it’s no surprise that Big Data is being put to use in many ways to aid the task of improving care, identifying risks and hopefully eventually producing cures.”
One such project highlighted by Marr is the American Society for Clinical Oncology’s CancerLinQ. This initiative hopes to ultimately collate and analyze data from every cancer patient in the United States. Similarly, Flatiron Health recently launched the OncologyCloud, a Big Data program designed to collect data from medical records, doctor notes and billing information. Essentially, Flatiron collates and structures disparate streams into a relevant data flow that can be used for comparative analysis.
In addition to the above-mentioned initiatives, 14 cancer institutes across the United States and Canada recently confirmed they would be using IBM’s Watson analytics engine to match cancer patients with the most appropriate treatments. According to Marr, Watson is even capable of recommending potential drugs that haven’t yet been tapped to treat cancer.
It should also be noted that there are a number of Big Data programs dedicated to researching and curing specific types of cancer. To be sure, the Dragon Master Foundation recently partnered with five U.S. pediatric hospitals to create a database of tissue samples taken from patients with rare childhood brain tumors.
“Just this year a study concluded that thanks to the advances in spotting and treating cancer, by 2050 no one under 80 will be dying from the disease,” adds Marr. “Big Data-powered research and treatment programs will undoubtedly play a part in that victory, just as they continue to give us answers in every field of science.”
As we’ve previously discussed on Rambus Press, healthcare – in general – is expected to be a primary driver of the cross-industry Big Data market worldwide, with Transparency Market Research projecting a massive increase from $6.3 billion to $48.3 billion by 2018.
“As healthcare embraces the need for accurate data, real-time insights into financial performance and patient care and a better understanding of population health management and consumer behaviors, Big Data analytics will continue to be a sound investment,” Jennifer Bresnick of HealthITAnalytics confirmed.
“[Although] the ability of healthcare providers to effectively leverage analytics tools may be threatened by the current lack of sufficient qualified talent, a keen sense of the value of Big Data is leading many organizations to invest heavily in securing experts in clinical and financial data management.”
More specifically, says Bresnick, Cloud computing, mHealth and computer assisted coding technologies are fueling significant investment in the underlying infrastructure that supports predictive Big Data analytics and prescriptive insights into patient care and business intelligence.
Of course, Big Data analytics isn’t limited to healthcare, as it spans multiple verticals, including smart grids, banking and agriculture. Indeed, Wikibon analysts see the Big Data market topping $84B in 2026, attaining a 17% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the forecast period 2011 to 2026. Meanwhile, IDC estimates the global Big Data and Analytics market will hit $125B in hardware, software and services revenue this year (2015).
Interested in learning more about Big Data? You can check out our article archive here.
Is health care prepared for the Cyber Age?
Writing for SemiconductorEngineering, Ernest Worthman describes the health care industry as “woefully ill-prepared” for a digital Cyber Age.
“This is a rather dismal assessment, considering that the volume of personal health-related data is an order of magnitude greater than the equivalent data in the financial segment and growing rapidly,” he opines.
“Within the past couple of years, millions of personal health care records have been leaked. Yet the health care industry is still behind other critical industries in security spending.”
Indeed, ABI Research confirms that security spending in the health care segment is only expected to total $10 billion by 2020 in the United States; approximately 10% of what other critical segments will be dedicating to digital security.
“Cyber security for health care is still a small, fragmented market and security is lacking,” says Michela Menting, practice director for the digital security service at ABI Research.
As Worthman notes, most of today’s medical devices integrate reconfigurable embedded systems, many of which are known to be vulnerable to various cybersecurity breaches.
“As interconnected medical devices proliferate and connect via hospital networks, the Internet, other medical, and smart devices, the risk of cybersecurity breaches that could affect how a medical device functions rises dramatically,” he confirms.
Paul Kocher, president and chief scientist of the Rambus Cryptography Research division, concurs with Worthman’s assessment.
“Medical devices with processors have bugs in the same way that other kinds of devices do. So there really isn’t any fundamental difference in addressing that, but there is a big difference in that the consequences can be life threatening,” Kocher told Semiconductor Engineering.
“What I see as a major concern is the case where devices have direct, or indirect connections to the broader network. For example, if a patient is connected to a device that talks to a system that is connected to the Internet, or the cloud, that tunnel of connectivity completely changes the risk profile.”
Moreover, the steps administrators can take to manage security risks in other devices – including frequent security updates – do not tend to work very well in a medical environment due to FDA regulations.
“[Nevertheless], at the end of the day I would rather have a life-saving remedy with security risks than to have no remedy at all,” Kocher concludes.
From an engineering perspective, adds Kocher, there are at least several avenues that can be explored, including developing more secure operating systems, designing processors with hardware-based security options, improving detection of anomalous activity and deploying multiple processors that check their answers against one another.
Interested in learning more about the challenges of cyber security in the medical sphere? You can check out the full text of Ernest Worthman’s “Red tape and health care security” on Semiconductor Engineering here, “Building a foundation for secure RPMs” on the Rambus blog here and “Medical devices probed for possible cyber flaws” on the Rambus blog here.
The ethical limits of White Hat hacking
The purported commandeering of a jetliner by an onboard security researcher has set off a heated industry debate over the ethical limits of White Hat hacking. According to White Hat Security founder Jeremiah Grossman, airline companies should design simulated aircraft systems for external security researchers to evaluate.
Grossman told Network World that corporate executives may be somewhat reluctant to participate in such a program, but says he believes they will eventually be more open to collaborating with the security community.
“Their first reaction is only authorized people can test their network. [Yet], Google got over it. Facebook got over it.”
Grossman also emphasized that security researchers should refrain from testing anything without ownership rights or written consent.
“Otherwise, you’re at the whim of the target,” he adds.
Paul Kocher, the President and Chief Scientist of Rambus’ Cryptography Research Division, told Network World the controversial issue of White Hat hacking is further compounded by various corporations wanting to publicly project a serene image of safety and security.
“[For example], if I’m operating a service, my financial interest is usually in trying to make my customers feel comfortable, which is not necessarily to disclose accurately what the risks are,” he explained. “If you want to have researchers providing [a certain] level of authentic, unfiltered information – at least when people are doing things badly – it’s going to be challenging.”
Kocher, who acknowledges that hacking has its gray areas, says that Rambus stays “very, very far” within the white zone.
“The question of messing with a flying plane’s avionics is pretty clearly for me in the black area,” he continued. “I see a lot of places where there’s a big debate, but I don’t see this as one where the shades of gray are as nuanced as they will be in future situations that will come along.”
One such area is the medical device market, which mandates a lengthy FDA approval process. Moreover, medical devices must be reapproved if any changes are made.
“But that doesn’t fit very well into your zero-day response cycles. How do you patch the Linux install running inside your implantable medical device? We haven’t worked these things out yet, and perhaps we never will. It’s just one of these horribly messy problems that we’ll be struggling with for a long time,” he concludes.
Will ‘disappearables’ replace wearables?
Writing for Reuters, Jeremy Wagstaff says ‘disappearables’ could very well be the next big thing in mobile.
“The pace of innovation and the tumbling cost, and size, of components will make wearables smaller – so small, some in the industry say, that no one will see them,” he explained. “Within five years, wearables like the watch could be overtaken by hearables – devices with tiny chips and sensors that can fit inside your ear. They, in turn, could be superseded by disappearables – technology tucked inside your clothing, or even inside your body.”
As Kow Ping of Well Being Digital Ltd points out, chipmakers have invested heavily in reducing the power consumption and size of sensors. To be sure, an accelerometer, which tracks position, motion and orientation, now measures 1 square millimeter.
A depiction of an accelerometer designed at Sandia National Laboratories. Image Credit: Wikipedia
“A few years ago it was two or three times as big and two or three times less refined,” he told Reuters. In five years, says Ping, “there will be people building sensors into every existing wearable device or apparel.”
Nikolaj Hviid of the Munich-based Bragi GmbH – who refers to such devices as ‘disappearables’ – envisions a wide range of use cases for the technology, including those related to the medical and fitness market. “It’s more like a butler … [Disappearables] do some basic stuff that you really want, but there are deeper experiences in there.”
Eliott Jones, VP of User Experience at Rambus, concurred with Hviid’s assessment.
“There are lots of people who literally have drawers filled with discarded wearables. Ultimately, quite a few of the devices have failed the most important market test: do they make our lives easier or are they mere distractions with limited long-term value? We are clearly in the early phase of an emergent technology, where the tendency is to explore what’s possible rather than what really is meaningful. Frankly, despite the recent excitement, I think most of the products we’re seeing aren’t going to be around in a few years,” said Jones.
“Quite a lot of the current buzz around the wearables market can be attributed to pent-up interest based on the promise of wearable devices, but they are being powered by technology that is actually still evolving in size and performance. And, to be able for them to succeed, wearables will need to command less of our attention. Wearables will likely only reach their full potential when they reach ‘disappearable’ status. Simply put, next-gen wearables will have to be capable of effectively extracting meaning from a vast amount of captured data with a minimal amount of (active) human input.”
