Medical Design Technology - July/August 2017

basically hack away at it, and then go back to the manufac-
turer and tell them how we got in and make suggestions. This
pinpoints specific weak and vulnerable areas in his product
and/or system for the next iteration.”
While Domas and her team focus on uncovering vulnerabil-
ities in both products and data transmissions, companies like
Microchip Technology Inc. come at this from the product side.
Steve Kennelly, Sr. Product Manager Medical Products, says
that Microchip’s microcontrollers, memories, analog, interface
chips, and software are used in medical products found in
hospital equipment and systems, wearable devices and implants.
“We provide the benefit of soldering in a component [which
implements security functions in hardware], as opposed to
writing proprietary code.

“Aside from the security benefits, implementing key algorithms in hard logic results in faster execution by freeing the processor from these math intensive functions. Hardware security cores also mean less code to write, and less memory needed to store it,” Jeannette Wilson, Product Marketing Manager, Microchip Computer Products Group says.

Xavier Bignalet, Marketing Manager for Microchip’s Se-
curity Products Group adds, “We can go to the next step and
‘attest rights’ to authentication. We can also provide a secure
boot in silicon that provides security for any devices that
might get an update over the air or during startup. Our devices
also make use of a shared secret key that we use to encrypt
and decrypt data communications. We can write those keys
into the chips in our factory to make sure that they stay secret.

In between the chips, it’s nothing but noise.”
As more medical devices are required to communicate across
the Io T (Internet of Things) they raise a new set of security
issues which companies like Icon Labs specialize in addressing.

Alan Grau, Icon Labs’ resident and founder says, “There
needed to be a broad security platform for all embedded devic-
es. Today, secure capabilities for Io T devices covers not only
secure communications, but certificate management, secure
boot, and several threat detection capabilities.”
“Cybersecurity is a bit of a science and a bit of an art. It’s new
and it is very challenging to stay ahead of constantly evolving
security issues. It’s not simple, nor always clearly understood,”
he says. “It’s easy to design a system or product to protect
against a known problem. But finding a new vulnerability is
difficult unless you try to find a way to actually break it.”
“White Hat hacking can definitely be of value,” he says “I
think a company that is truly serious about weeding out any
potential vulnerabilities and building the best security in their
device should take advantage of one of these penetration test-
ing groups, and not just rely on themselves.”
Icon Labs is now providing standardized embedded soft-
ware products that they can customize to the needs of each
customer. Their software is typically implemented as part of
the processor’s core system firmware. “A device or diagnostic
system may be running anywhere and while the software is
running there may be a number of our software components
running along side as an integrated part of the solution, verify-
ing that the communications channel is secure before any data
is sent back and forth.”

Microchip’s AWS-ECC508 security solution has three production steps. First, the AT88CKECC kit allows developers to easily connect to the AWS Io T platform during the evaluation and engineering phase. Second, the AWS-ECC508 device assists with meeting security standards during the prototyping and pre-production phase. Finally, devices can be customized for production. (Credit: Microchip)

www.wabashmpi.com

Tel: 260-563-1184 wabashmpi@acscorporate.com s;;3HORT;RUN;;CLEAN;; ; ROOM;AND;MEDICAL; ; APPLICATIONS s;;3HOT;SIZES;UP;TO;;;CC s;;#LAMP;FORCE;UP;TO; ; ;;;TONS s;;!CCURATE;AND; ; REPEATABLE;SHOT;SIZE;; ; CONTROL