Researchers unveil Internet of Things security feature

Researchers unveil Internet of Things security feature

Rice University Integrated Circuit (IC) is the Chief Chip-Design Conference of Silicon Valley to unveil the technology, which is 10 times more reliable than the current methods of inefficient digital fingerprint production for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. is.

Kaiyuan Yang and Dai Li will present their physically incompatible work (PUF) technology in the 2019 International Concrete-State Circuit Conference (ISSC), which is scientifically informally known as "Chip Olympic".

 The PUF uses physical loopholes of a microchip to produce unique security keys that can be used to authenticate devices connected to the Internet of Things.

Given that some experts expect the Earth to go through the threshold of 1 trillion Internet-connected sensors within five years, the pressure is increasing for improving the security of IoT devices.

Yang and Lee's PUF provides a leap in credibility by generating two unique fingerprints for each PUF. 

This "zero-overhead" method uses the same PUF components to make both keys, and due to an innovative design feature, additional fields and latency are not required, which means that their PUF is approximately 15 Allows to make the fold more energy efficient.

"Basically each PUF unit can work in two modes," said Yang, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. 

In the first mode, it creates a fingerprint, and in the second mode, it gives a second fingerprint. Each is a specific identifier, and the dual key is very good for reliability. On the off chance, the device fails in the first mode. Can use the second key. It is likely that it will fail in both modes is too small. "

As a means of authentication, the PUF fingerprints have many advantages similar to that of human fingerprints, he said.

"First of all, they are unique," Yang said. "You do not have to worry about two people with the same fingerprint, secondly, they are personally bonded. You can not change your fingerprint or copy it to someone else's finger. , A fingerprint is ineligible, there is no way. Create a new person, who has the same finger as anyone else. "

PUP-derived encryption keys are also unique, bonded and incompatible. To understand why it helps to understand that every transistor on the computer chip is incredibly small. More than one billion of them can be pasted on half of the size of a credit card. But for all their precision, the microchips are not perfect. 

The difference between the transistor may be some amount of atoms more or less in one, but those minute differences are sufficient to produce the electronic fingerprint used to make the PUF key.

For 128-bit keys, a PUF device will send a request signal for an array of PUF cells containing several hundred transistors, which assigns one or zero to each bit based on the reactions from PUF cells. 

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Unlike the numerical keys stored in a traditional digital format, PUF keys are actively made every time they are requested, and different keys can be used by activating a different set of transistors.

By adopting PUF, chip makers allow cheap and secure encryption key for encryption, which is a standard feature on next-generation computer chips for IoT devices such as "Smart Home" thermostat, security cameras and lightbulb. Is in.

Encrypted lightbulbs? If it seems like overkill, then consider unsafe IOT devices that distributed the denial-of-service attacks by three young computer servants gathered by hundreds of thousands of people to mount in October 2016, which is the most of the day For the Internet on the East Coast crippled.

"The general concept for IoT is to connect the physical objects to the Internet so that the physical and cyber world can be integrated," Yang said. 

In most consumer IoTs today, the concept has not been fully realized because many devices operate and almost all existing ICs use the set which was developed for the mobile market."

In contrast, tools released from research labs like Yang are designed for IoT above ground. 

When measuring only a few millimeters in size, the latest IoT prototype can pack a processor, flash memory, wireless transmitter, antenna, one or more sensor, battery and rice grain size in one area.

PUF is not a new idea for IOT security, but Yang and Lee's version is unique in terms of PUF reliability, energy efficiency and volume of area to apply on a chip. 

For the start, Yang said that performance gains were measured in tests of military-grade temperatures ranging from 125 degrees Celsius to minus 55 degrees Celsius and when the supply voltage fell to 50 percent.

"If a single transistor behaves abnormally in different environmental conditions, then the device will produce the wrong key, and it will look like an inattentive device," Yang said. "For this reason, reliability, or stability, is the most important measure for PUF."

Energy efficiency is also important for IoT, where devices can be expected to run on a battery charge for a decade. In Yang and Li's PUF, the keys are made using a stable voltage instead of activating the transistor. It is clear that the static approach will be more energy efficient as it is equivalent to flicking the switch to get a quick look at the room rather than leaving the light on 24/7.

"Generally, sleep mode is active to people, and when they want to make a key, they activate the transistor, switch it once and then put it to sleep again," Yang he said. "In our design, the PUF module is always on, but it takes very little power, even in sleep mode is less than a conventional system."

On-chip area - The amount of space and expense makers to be allocated to keep the PUF device on a production chip - this is the third metric where they perform better than previously reported work. His design captured 2.37 square micrometer for generating a bit on the prototype produced using the 65-nanometer complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology.

The research was funded by Rice University.