Collaboration to detect physical cyber attacks

The combination will enable the detection and prevention of ‘analogue interference’ cyber attacks that circumvent traditional security measures by tampering with underlying systems such as power supply levels or clock signals.

UltraSoC’s recently-announced cybersecurity products monitor the functional behaviour of digital circuitry, adding an extra layer of defence-in-depth to the security landscape, and detecting and mitigating cyber threats at hardware speed. Agile Analog offers a parallel range of “smart” monitors in the analogue domain, such as voltage, temperature and timing sensors to detect side-channel attacks or anomalous behaviour that could indicate a cyber attack. The combination of system-level digital monitoring and analogue capabilities will enable a holistic approach to hardware-based cybersecurity.

These types of side-channel attacks, such as voltage and clock glitching, brownouts and temperature variations, can be used to gain access to a chip’s internal circuitry, which makes UltraSoC’s hardware based security essential in monitoring and defending against these attacks where hackers may exploit side-channel vulnerabilities to launch a brute force attack.

Gajinder Panesar, CTO at UltraSoC, commented: “Agile Analog has some truly unique technology that’s invaluable in monitoring the underlying analogue behaviour of an SoC for potential signs of suspicious or unexpected activity. We believe that partnerships like this are key to enabling a holistic secure embedded cybersecurity architecture with monitoring capable of delivering from fab to field.”

Mike Hulse, CTO at Agile Analog, added: “We share UltraSoC’s vision of a holistic embedded cybersecurity ecosystem. Working together will allow us to move a step closer to that vision. Security is one of the key pain points faced by every electronics manufacturer today – particularly in industries such as automotive. The complementary nature of our technologies – UltraSoC offering system-level functional monitoring, and Agile Analog looking at underlying analogue behaviour – makes our products a natural fit for cybersecurity applications.”

UltraSoC embeds transaction-aware hardware monitors into the digital infrastructure of an SoC. These are interconnected via a message-based architecture, allowing the implementation of sophisticated system-wide anomaly detection and mitigation measures. The company’s Bus Sentinel and CAN Sentinel hardware modules, for example, can identify and instantaneously block suspicious communications within the chip.

Bus Sentinel was awarded a Best in Show award in the security category at the recent Embedded World 2020 event. The partnership with Agile Analog will integrate data from analogue monitors (such as clock, voltage and temperature monitors) into the UltraSoC cybersecurity infrastructure, enabling even more sophisticated anomaly detection schemes.