Hardware Security Measures

🔧🔐 Automotive Cybersecurity: Securing Individual ECUs – Building Resilience from the Inside Out 🔐🔧 As modern vehicles transition into intelligent, software-defined platforms, the security of individual ECUs (Electronic Control Units) becomes a top priority in the automotive cybersecurity domain. While the ECU Gateway protects the broader network, each component ECU must independently withstand cyber threats to preserve functional safety and data integrity. Today’s vehicles can contain 70–100 ECUs, each responsible for different functions—ADAS, braking, powertrain, infotainment, telematics, and more. If a single ECU is compromised, attackers could escalate privileges, inject malicious commands, or bridge to other critical systems. This risk elevates the need for component-level cybersecurity. 🎯 Why is ECU-level protection essential? Attackers may target ECUs individually via diagnostic ports, OTA channels, or compromised software Legacy ECUs lack basic security features, making them weak points Each ECU processes sensitive logic critical to both safety and performance 🛡️ Key Security Features for Component ECUs: Hardware Security Modules (HSM): Secure storage for keys, crypto operations, and random number generation Secure Boot: Ensures only authenticated and untampered firmware runs at startup Memory Protection & Isolation: Prevents data leaks or manipulation from unauthorized software zones Runtime Integrity Monitoring: Detects if firmware behavior deviates from expected logic Secure Diagnostics: Limits access to debugging and flash tools through authentication and encrypted sessions 📘 Adopting frameworks like ISO/SAE 21434 and AUTOSAR Security profiles helps standardize the development of secure ECUs, ensuring that security is considered at every lifecycle phase—from design to decommissioning. With the growing complexity of vehicle software and external interfaces (V2X, cloud, mobile apps), securing ECUs is no longer optional. It's a requirement for both regulatory compliance (UNECE WP.29 R155) and consumer trust. 🔍 Cybersecurity is not just about the perimeter anymore—it’s about defense in depth. Every ECU must be treated as an independent digital asset, capable of defending itself against threats, even if the network perimeter is breached. 💬 Let’s continue the conversation: How is your organization integrating ECU-level security in your system architecture? #AutomotiveCybersecurity #ECUSecurity #SecureECUs #ISO21434 #VehicleElectronics #AUTOSAR #CyberSecurityByDesign #EmbeddedSecurity #SoftwareDefinedVehicle #ConnectedCar

🔍 Security Research on Wi-Fi Wireless Door/Window Sensors As smart home devices become more prevalent, security risks evolve alongside them. Our recent deep dive into a WiFi Wireless Door/Window Sensor revealed interesting insights into its hardware and communication security. Here's what we found: 📡 Connecting to the Device 🔹The sensor connects over WiFi, allowing real-time logs of open/close events. 🔹Minimalist design means fewer attack surfaces, but security depends on implementation. 🔬 Hardware Examination 🔹Identified a QFN (Quad Flat No-lead) packaged chip, often used in compact IoT devices. 🔹UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter) pins were exposed, raising concerns about potential serial console access. 🔹UART security varied—some models required authentication, while others allowed unrestricted access, posing a risk. 📜 Sensor Event Logs & Data Handling 🔹The sensor logs every open/close event, potentially useful for intrusion detection but also a privacy concern. 🔹Logs are transmitted over WiFi, making encryption crucial to prevent interception. 🔹Weak or absent encryption could allow attackers to spoof or modify event logs. 🔐 Security Insights & Recommendations 🔹Ensure WiFi communications are encrypted (WPA2 at minimum, TLS for cloud connections). 🔹Secure UART interfaces or disable them if not required. 🔹Regular firmware updates to patch vulnerabilities. 🔹Implement device authentication to prevent unauthorized control or data extraction. As IoT adoption continues to rise, securing even the simplest sensors is critical. A compromised door sensor could provide an attacker with an entry point into the broader smart home network. 💬 Have you assessed the security of your smart home devices? Let’s discuss the risks and best practices! #CyberSecurity #IoTSecurity Kavach IoT Security #SmartHome #HardwareHacking #PenTesting #SecurityResearch

BadRAM! This paper presents a novel attack that exploits vulnerabilities in the memory subsystem of modern Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). Here are some of the key findings: Overview BadRAM creates aliases in the physical address space by manipulating the Serial Presence Detect (SPD) chip on DRAM modules. This allows bypassing access control mechanisms in TEEs like AMD SEV-SNP. The attack requires only $10 worth of equipment and one-time physical access to the DRAM. Vulnerabilities TEEs place implicit trust in the BIOS to correctly configure the memory controller based on SPD data. This is due to the fact that an SPD chip lacks strong authentication, allowing its contents to be modified. Even features like memory encryption are insufficient to prevent integrity and replay attacks. Impact on TEEs  AMD SEV-SNP: Completely breaks memory integrity guarantees and attestation. Intel SGX (Classic): Enables fine-grained, noiseless write pattern leakage Intel Scalable SGX and TDX: Protected by existing alias detection mechanisms Arm CCA: Likely vulnerable based on design, but hardware not yet available for testing Recommended Mitigations - Implement boot-time memory alias detection: - Scan the entire physical address space for aliases. - Protect the scanning code from manipulation (e.g., using a low-level TEE). - Improve SPD security: - Allow permanent write protection on critical configuration blocks. - Implement authentication for SPD contents - Use strong cryptographic memory protection: - Employ integrity trees and MACs to detect tampering and replay attacks. - Research more scalable designs to protect larger memory sizes efficiently. - Reduce trust in DRAM hardware: - Implement additional checks to verify DRAM behavior matches configuration. - Consider potential hardware-level attacks in threat models. - Harden software against potential information leakage: - Use constant-time programming techniques to mitigate potential side channels. - Improve firmware security: - Implement secure boot and firmware authentication to prevent BIOS-level attacks. #firmware #hardwaresecurity #trustedexecution #security https://lnkd.in/gVhcvBgV

ISO/IEC 27071:2023 — Cybersecurity — Security recommendations for establishing trusted connections between devices and services This document provides a framework and security recommendations for establishing trusted connections between devices and services based on Hardware Security Modules (HSM), which would help the related organisations to set up HSM in devices (including mobile devices, PCs, or #IoT devices) and in the infrastructure of cloud services. It can help to build a trusted environment and help trusted third parties (i.e. CA) to issue certificates to devices and services, and help applications to mitigate against attacks and identify forged data from the sensors. It includes recommendations for components such as: hardware security module, roots of trust, identity, authentication and key establishment, remote attestation, data integrity and authenticity. This document does not address privacy concerns. #iotsecurity