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Cited by 463Security and Verification in ComputingCryptographic Implementations and SecurityEmbedded Systems Design Techniques

Security in embedded systems: Design challenges

Ravi, Srivaths, Raghunathan, Anand, Kocher, Paul, Hattangady, Sunil·2004·ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems
DOI 10.1145/1015047.1015049
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Abstract

Many modern electronic systems---including personal computers, PDAs, cell phones, network routers, smart cards, and networked sensors to name a few---need to access, store, manipulate, or communicate sensitive information, making security a serious concern in their design. Embedded systems, which account for a wide range of products from the electronics, semiconductor, telecommunications, and networking industries, face some of the most demanding security concerns---on the one hand, they are often highly resource constrained, while on the other hand, they frequently need to operate in physically insecure environments.Security has been the subject of intensive research in the context of general-purpose computing and communications systems. However, security is often misconstrued by embedded system designers as the addition of features, such as specific cryptographic algorithms and security protocols, to the system. In reality, it is a new dimension that designers should consider throughout the design process, along with other metrics such as cost, performance, and power.The challenges unique to embedded systems require new approaches to security covering all aspects of embedded system design from architecture to implementation. Security processing, which refers to the computations that must be performed in a system for the purpose of security, can easily overwhelm the computational capabilities of processors in both low- and high-end embedded systems. This challenge, which we refer to as the "security processing gap," is compounded by increases in the amounts of data manipulated and the data rates that need to be achieved. Equally daunting is the "battery gap" in battery-powered embedded systems, which is caused by the disparity between rapidly increasing energy requirements for secure operation and slow improvements in battery technology. The final challenge is the "assurance gap," which relates to the gap between functional security measures (e.g., security services, protocols, and their constituent cryptographic algorithms) and actual secure implementations. This paper provides an introduction to the challenges involved in secure embedded system design, discusses recent advances in addressing them, and identifies opportunities for future research.

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  • The Hardware/Software Address Protection (HSAP) technique includes hardware boundary check and function pointer XOR methods to deal with stack smashing and function pointer attacks in embedded systems.

    “The Hardware/Software Address Protection (HSAP) technique offered by [28] including hardware boundary check method and function pointer XOR method to deal with stack smashing attack and function pointer attack in embedded systems , respectively.”

    From A Taxonomy of Cyber Attacks on SCADA Systems (2011) · cites this paper as [28]

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Authors
Ravi, S., Raghunathan, A., Kocher, P., & Hattangady, S.
Affiliations
  • NEC Laboratories America, Princeton, NJ
  • Cryptography Research, San Francisco, CA
  • Texas Instruments (United States) (US)
ORCID
Raghunathan, Anand
Venue
ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Published
2004-08
Volume
3
Issue
3
Pages
461-491
ISSN
  • 1539-9087 (ISSN-L)
  • 1558-3465
DOI
10.1145/1015047.1015049
OpenAlex
W2120562931
Cited by
463
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 40 · 2012: 37
FWCI
18.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Background (vor)
Locations
ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Security and Verification in Computing
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Cryptographic Implementations and Security
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Hardware and Architecture › Embedded Systems Design Techniques
Keywords
embedded systems security, battery-powered embedded systems, energy consumption, cryptographic algorithms, security protocols, resource-constrained devices, secure implementation

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