Placement of trust anchors in embedded computer systems

Abstract

The use of Trust Anchors in a well designed embedded system can help create more secure designs. Trust Anchors can be used to establish, extend, and maintain trust during power-up and run-time operation of a system. A system may contain one or more trust anchors working isolated or in a coordinated manner within the system. Embedded computer systems may be subject to network and physical attacks and so the use of trust anchors may help protect the system from these attacks. By evaluating potential attacks the placement and functionality of trusted hardware and software in the system may be defined to help mitigate the attacks. This paper uses several different attacks on an embedded computer as examples to describe the placement of trust anchors, hardware and software protection mechanisms, and other functionality needed to protect the system against these attacks.