Ensure Security across your Embedded Systems with SHA-3 Capabilities

By Embedded Advisor | Monday, June 24, 2019

With the rapid rise of the internet of things (IoT) devices, it’s imperative to design the systems with security as a primary concern.

FREMONT, CA: Consider the hackers trying to break into a centrally-controlled air condition system in an office. Why would they do that? It might seem harmless, but the aftermath can be dangerous in case of the modern embedded systems. In the above example, the centrally-controlled air condition system may be administered through an internet connected system. Thus the hackers can gain entry into the organization’s network and its database.

Odds of Hacking into an Embedded System

With the rapid rise of the internet of things (IoT) devices, it’s imperative to design the systems with security as a primary concern. Moreover, cybercriminals are getting adept with the knowledge required to hack into the ICs that implement security in an embedded system. On the contrary, the embedded security ICs offer advanced security features that help to stay ahead of the hackers. SHA-3 is one such feature available in hardware. SHA-3 allows a secure one-way function implying that input data cannot be constructed from the hash data. The input data can’t be changed either without changing the hash.

The host controller has a system secret, and the slave accessory has a unique secret. The first step in the authentication process is for the host to compute the unique secret stored n the slave IC. The host requests the ROM ID from the slave and forwards it along with its securely stored system secret and computer data, into its SHA-3 engine. The engine computes an SHA-3 hash-based MAC (HMAC) which is equal to the unique secret code in authentication IC.

Efficient, Strong, and Cost-Effective Security

Hash algorithms translate a digital message into a short message digest. A change in the original message causes alters the digest too, thus making it convenient to spot a difference. Secure hash algorithms make it difficult to determine the original data only with the help of hash data. However, in case of a similar hash from different values results in a collision or a broken hash function.

Conclusion

Though the migration to SHA-3 has been slow, the migration process is similar to the shift from SHA-1 to SHA-2. And for the embedded system, there’s at least a secure authentication option with SHA-3 support that promises the protection of smart, connected design.