SandGrain B.V.’s Post

While Europe is freaking out about Chinese #buses suspected of carrying a kill switch (last stop: Beijing), there is way to prevent connected devices from being 'updated' or #hacked over-the-air. This week in NRC: a new #Dutch initiative assigns each #chip a #unique identification number, which acts as a foolproof lock for critical networks. By leveraging this, you can safeguard the electricity grid, cell towers, and other essential connected #infrastructure that remains vulnerable in a #hybrid war. At the High Tech Campus in #Eindhoven, SandGrain B.V. is developing a technique that gives each chip its own engraved identification number. A chip with a unique number guards access to the underlying electronics. Only when that number is recognized does the user gain access to the system and can, for example, install software or new firmware. No one in the entire production chain knows the key; even for SandGrain it's a secret. And even if criminals were able to circumvent the system, which according to the SandGrainers is impossible, they would only have access to one device. That makes it much more complicated to sabotage an entire network. There are other ways to give hardware its own number, such as the #PUF (physical unclonable function) in a chip design. PUF codes are not etched in, but are based on a statistical calculation in the chip design. However, this is sensitive to environmental factors, such as temperature. Moreover, that code takes up valuable space on the small chip surface. #Etching or #writing a number afterwards is, according to SandGrain, a better option. Fun fact: the PUF technique is a legacy of Philips, developed at the same High Tech Campus. Just like NXP Semiconductors, another Philips descendant, which makes secure chips using cryptography. Chips are mass-produced products; lithography systems, like ASML’s or Nikon’s, are copy machines that replicate enormous numbers of wafers with the same design. Each wafer can hold hundreds of chips. One drawback: if you crack one chip, you’ve basically cracked them all. Unique chips can help secure connected cars and buses or military equipment. You don't want a fighter jet to have a rogue chip with a backdoor on board. The leading American institute National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is now working on a standard for global chip #traceability. Chipmakers such as Intel Corporation, Qualcomm and AMD want to integrate the technology. It helps detect #counterfeit chips and NVIDIA could use it to verify that expensive AI chips don't end up in data centers in #China, circumventing #export restrictions. Europe, in turn, could create a more secure, independent #cloud with unique chips. The lesson of the hybrid war so far: our infrastructure requires better protection against #sabotage, and in ten years we'll be asking ourselves how we could ever have been so foolish as to not give chips their own fingerprint for decades. animation Roel Venderbosch link in comments