The Emerging Need for Design-in Cybersecurity

Technology advances are bringing more connected smart devices into our lives more often, and we’re putting them to more uses. Providing for security designed at the silicon-level of that technology (often called “design-in” or “security by default”) will be key to making those technologies reliable tools in our lives.

The numbers are somewhat staggering: We expect to see 75 billion devices, or Internet-connected “things” in use by 2025, which means nearly 10 connected devices for every person on the planet (and far more per user or household in much of the Global North). They’ll also be distributed somewhat unevenly between home, office, infrastructure and industrial applications ranging from individuals using highly automated cars and personal care devices to groups of people using industrial automation and medical diagnostic devices, just to name a few.

These technologies are also becoming more powerful and complex, locating computing at the point of use — called “the edge” in reference to networks connected to centralized servers, whether physically or via the cloud — so that processing and learning can happen better and faster. One research group estimates that 43% of all IoT computing will occur at such “edges” instead of relying solely on cloud-based analyses and decision making.

This shift makes smart devices less vulnerable to cloud-based attacks but also makes them the targets of attacks instead. So, for us to enable them to take on more responsible functions in our lives, we need to be able to rely on them not only to perform as expected but to do so safely and securely.

That’s why NXP was at the Munich Security Conference last week along with Siemens and the other leading industrial companies who co-founded the Charter of Trust. We were there exploring with business and government leaders a number of ways to strengthen cybersecurity across industry verticals and use cases, including the development of certification standards for IoT products.

This builds on what we accomplished in 2019 with the establishment of 17 baseline requirements which businesses can use to increase the security of their supply chains. As a world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, we’re thrilled to be contributing our expertise and creativity to this ongoing collaborative effort.

It was a pleasure to join industry leaders at Munich Security Conference to celebrate two years Charter of Trust for cybersecurity

It was a pleasure to join industry leaders at Munich Security Conference to celebrate two years Charter of Trust for cybersecurity

• First, it’s important to free global trade. It’s impossible to imagine goods, services and payments traveling across continents without them being safe and secure; the lack of such certainty will impede the development of those relationships and execution of those transactions.
• Second, it’s important to smart cities and industry. Our huge hopes not only for operational efficiency but economic and social access and justice for smart cities and manufacturing rely on safety and security. Traffic lights and access to city services can’t be hackable, and industrial robots executing tasks with multi-million-dollar implications need to be protected.
• Third, it’s important to individuals and families. We already depend on our devices for home security to financial and health-related transactions, and this dependence will increase only if we are reassured that our activities are kept private and secure. More consistent standards, combined with design-in security provisions, will provide the necessary platform for realizing these benefits.

Working together, we can and will make those connected smart devices in our lives usable more often for more things by making them safe and secure.