Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1442760
Design engineers face new challenges. Not only must they implement very robust security against sophisticated attacks in their designs, but they must also optimize their designs for low cost. DeepCover ® Secure Authenticators with ChipDNA ™ PUF technology implement advanced physical security to provide the ultimate low-cost intellectual property protection, clone prevention, and peripheral authentication. 4 | 4 | Maxim Integrated Offers Secure ECDSA Authenticators Phil Hipol for Mouser Electronics Tamper-resistant cryptographic processors, or secure authenticators, incorporate advanced cryptography and physical security to prevent hackers and other individuals with malicious intent from accessing and stealing data, financial information, intellectual property, and physical property. These processors are used in a wide variety of applications, including smart cards, banking and credit card terminals, high-security portable communication devices (such as cell phones), and other secure electronic devices (such as computers and servers, TV-set box modules, game consoles, hardware security modules, and automobile electronics), among others. This article provides an overview of the various secure microcontroller technologies and discusses alternative technologies and products that may be used for these applications, including Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) authenticators. Encryption Tech 101 The volume series entitled Digital Rights Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (produced by the Information Resources Management Association and released in October 2012 with a copyright in 2013) explains that a secure cryptoprocessor acts as the keystone of a security subsystem, eliminating the need to protect individual components of the subsystem with physical security measures. In general, cryptoprocessors input program instructions in encrypted form, decrypt the instructions to plain instructions that are executed within the cryptoprocessor, and then re-encrypt the output. Mr. Phil Hipol has more than 30 years of experience in the field of noise and vibration analysis, testing and control in several industries. He has an MS in Engineering and has published original research in the field of vibro- acoustics, where some of his work appears in the industry- standard Shock and Vibration Handbook and the NASA Handbook for Dynamic Environmental Criteria. Mr. Hipol has invented numerous devices and is co-inventor of an award-winning novel acoustic device, the catheter stethoscope, which non-invasively monitors the fetal and maternal heart rates and maternal contractions during labor and delivery. He has also worked extensively in the field of active and passive noise and vibration control, and has implemented numerous sound and vibration attenuation solutions for industrial, commercial, residential, and biomedical applications. Mr. Hipol is skilled in the use of state-of-the-art sound level meters, dynamic signal analyzers, microphones, accelerometers and acoustic cameras, as well as the use of various industry-standard noise and vibration analysis and simulation software.