Warren Savage delivers cybersecurity keynote at DesignCon 2020

ISR-affiliated Warren Savage, a visiting researcher with the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) at University of Maryland, delivered a keynote presentation, “Design for Security: The Next Frontier of Smart Silicon,” at DesignCon 2020 in late January. DesignCon is a conference addressing engineering design challenges in the electronics industry. It covers all aspects of hardware design, including signal and power integrity, high-speed serial design, and machine learning.

In his talk, Savage advocates for a new design skill, “design for security,” to create highly secure devices. Such devices would have the following properties:

• A hardware-based root of trust
• A small trusted computing base
• Defense in depth
• Compartmentalization
• Certificate-based authentication
• Renewable security
• Failure reporting

John Blyler wrote about Savage’s presentation for the website designnews.com. In “Pay Now (Security) or Pay Later (Cyber Attacks),” Blyler notes that while smart silicon chips have enabled the connected Internet of Things world, because security is an afterthought, they also have made the future less smart.

Design News covers electronics and test, automation and control, materials and assembly, and design hardware and software for consumer electronics, automotive, medical, industrial controls, and military/aerospace/defense applications.

Published February 21, 2020