Actu
RISC-V International and GlobalPlatform Partner to Enhance Security Design of IoT Devices
May 2020 by Marc Jacob
GlobalPlatform & RISC-V International are pleased to announce the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU). Collaboration between the two organizations will help accelerate the development of open standards for the hardware design of embedded components in connected devices for the Internet of Things (IoT). This includes processors embedded with Trusted Execution Environment (TEEs), which are witnessing significant growth.
In 2019, GlobalPlatform reported a 50 percent year-on-year increase in the number of GlobalPlatform-compliant TEEs being shipped. Aligning specifications and exchanging information on known hardware vulnerabilities and the required functionalities to overcome them, will enable GlobalPlatform and RISC-V to update each organization’s their respective technical documents and frameworks to address the evolving security needs of the IoT ecosystem. Short to mid-term examples are expected to include a focus on application programming interfaces (APIs) for the TEE, as well as microcontroller (MCU) protection profiles and the appropriate security extensions.
Gil Bernabeu, Technical Director at GlobalPlatform, adds, “GlobalPlatform has established strong collaborative relationships with key industry partners across the world and we are pleased to count RISC-V among them.
RISC-V International was founded to build an open, collaborative community of software and hardware innovators based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA). RISC-V International, a non-profit organization controlled by its members, directs the future development and drives the adoption of the RISC-V ISA. Members of RISC-V have access to and participate in the development of the RISC-V ISA specification and extensions as well as related hardware and software.
GlobalPlatform has accelerated its work to standardize the design, certification, deployment and management of IoT devices in recent years. Its existing work to standardize and certify secure components, alongside APIs to secure devices from the root of trust to the cloud, has been built upon with the announcement of recent new initiatives. In October the organization unveiled IoTopia, a framework to better secure and manage IoT devices, and more recently GlobalPlatform announced its support for Security Evaluation Standard for IoT Platforms (SESIP) methodology.
