A Modern Approach to Application Specific Processors for Improving the Security of Embedded Devices

The security of embedded devices is very important today because critical infrastructures like medical devices, transportation, communication, and smart grids deploy them in large numbers. In all of these areas cybersecurity is the enabler for safety as failing or compromised devices threaten the life of people. Often, it is not feasible securing already deployed devices because of high costs, missing physical access, or defective hardware. Therefore, the next generation devices deployed in the future have to be more secure and more resilient to cyber attacks.This paper proposes a new approach to secure these next generation devices by using program optimized Application Specific Processors (ASPs) and employing an easy to integrate development flow for embedded developers. It evaluates the security improvement by analyzing the vulnerability of the approach against typical attack patterns.