Lightweight Hardware-Based Memory Protection Mechanism on IoT Processors

Abstract

As the Internet of Things (IoT) systems become more and more popular, many devices around life are now connected to the internet. While allowing large amounts of information to be transmitted and exchanged, sensitive information in IoTs also becomes vulnerable to leakage. Therefore the security of each device and network in IoT systems has become a critical issue. Many IoT devices are simple devices used for daily supplies; they cannot cost too much and must be lightweight. These devices are often controlled by simple Operating Systems (OS), some even in bare-metal environments without OS. In this paper we propose a lightweight memory security mechanism implemented mainly by hardware. This mechanism puts critical data in secure regions, and the processor can access the secure regions only after passing a hardware-based authentication process. Our method allows the processor to maintain high security without relying on the OS; hence even if the IoT device only has a bare-metal environment, it still can protect important data at a low cost. Experimental results show that a very high level of security can be achieved with only a very small extra delay and area overhead required.