Hardware-Enabled Secure Firmware Updates in Embedded Systems - VLSI-SoC: New Technology Enabler 27th IFIP WG 10.5/IEEE International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration, VLSI-SoC 2019 Cusco, Peru, October 6–9, 2019 Revised and Extended Selected Papers
Conference Papers Year : 2020

Hardware-Enabled Secure Firmware Updates in Embedded Systems

Solon Falas
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  • PersonId : 1120094
Maria K. Michael
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  • PersonId : 1120095

Abstract

Firmware updates on embedded systems are essential for patching vulnerabilities and improving the functionality of devices. Despite the importance of firmware updates, manufacturers and firmware developers often consider firmware security as a secondary task. As a result, firmware often turns into an alluring target for adversaries to inject malicious code into embedded devices. In this work, we present a framework that supports secure and fast firmware update delivery with minimal downtime on embedded devices. The proposed framework makes use of cryptographic primitives implemented on hardware in addition to the device’s intrinsic physical characteristics acting as digital authentication fingerprints. Our implementation ensures firmware authenticity, confidentiality, and integrity. A proof-of-concept design is emulated on FPGA demonstrating high performance, strong security guarantees, and minimal hardware overhead.
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Dates and versions

hal-03476611 , version 1 (13-12-2021)

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Solon Falas, Charalambos Konstantinou, Maria K. Michael. Hardware-Enabled Secure Firmware Updates in Embedded Systems. 27th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration - System on a Chip (VLSI-SoC), Oct 2019, Cusco, Peru. pp.165-185, ⟨10.1007/978-3-030-53273-4_8⟩. ⟨hal-03476611⟩
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