Network Security for Embedded Systems
Speaker: Dirk Lessner, ITEE
When: 2005-09-02 15:00:00
Venue: 78-420
Host: Prof. Neil Bergmann
Abstract:It is widely recognized that security is a concern in the design of
a wide range of embedded systems. But security for these systems is
an open question and could prove a more difficult long-term problem
than security does today for desktop and enterprise computing. The
promise of universal connectivity for embedded systems creates
increased possibilities for malicious users to gain unauthorized
access to sensitive information.
All modern security protocols use private-key and public-key
algorithms. This thesis investigates three important cryptography
algorithms (RC4, AES, and RSA) and their relevance to networked
embedded systems. Limitations in processing power, battery life,
communication bandwidth, memory and costs constrain the
applicability of existing cryptography standards for small embedded
devices. A mismatch between wide arithmetic for security (32 bit
word operations) and embedded data bus widths (often only 8 or 16
bits) combined with a lack of certain operations (e. g., multi
precision arithmetic) highlight a gap in the domain of networked
embedded systems security.
The aim of this thesis is to find feasible security solutions for
networked embedded system applications. The above mentioned
cryptography algorithms have been ported to three hardware platforms
(Rabbit RCM3000, Xilinx Virtex 4 FPGA with MicroBlaze softcore, and
a Linux desktop machine) in order to simulate several real world
scenarios. Three applications - bidirectional transmission with
encryption and decryption for various payload length, unidirectional
transmission with very short payload, and encrypted data streaming -
were developed to meet the simulation requirements.
Biography:Dirk Lessner is an MPhil student, submitting his thesis in late
August 2005, before returning to Germany in early September, 2005.
He has been a recipient of a DSTC scholarship top-up. This thesis
summarises the key results from his thesis.
Type: MPhil completion
Contact:Prof. Neil Bergmann, seminar host (n.bergmann@itee.uq.edu.au)
or Guido Governatori (ITEE seminar co-ordinator)
(guido@itee.uq.edu.au)