“Building a Strong Foundation: How FPGAs Are Paving the Way for Cyber Resiliency Integration”

Internet security is a growing concern for the digital age. As we become more connected and rely more heavily on internet-connected devices, cybercriminals find more ways to exploit vulnerabilities. To better protect networks, it is essential to adopt cyber resiliency – the ability to continuously protect systems, detect threats, and recover from firmware attacks. Root-of-trust (RoT) foundations and automation are two approaches that have gained popularity in recent years.

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are an example of a type of hardware root-of-trust (HRoT) device that provides cyber resiliency. Their inherent flexibility, small form factor, and low power consumption make them particularly useful for serving as a security engine for telecommunication vendors and other industries, such as data centers, automotive designs, and smart home devices.

Data centers need to ensure pro-active measures are in place to protect their data so they can be cyber resilient. They must automatically detect threats and recover while having enough functionality to meet their service-level requirements. Platform firmware resiliency (PFR) provides the “protect, detect, recover” real-time cycle to do so, and it starts with leveraging an HRoT device like FPGAs. If an attack on firmware manages to be successful, flash devices on the FPGA can override the unauthorized version, load a golden image of the authorized firmware, and ensure the system’s recovery.

Similarly, the automotive industry has made strides in recent years to improve safety and comfort through autonomous driving, advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS), and vehicle connectivity. However, this progress created new security threats that could potentially harm drivers and passengers. FPGAs are being leveraged to connect multiple displays and cameras in a vehicle, ensuring that safety-critical information is reliably reproduced while also notifying the driver of errors or failure.

In smart home control and security systems, FPGAs meet the demands for high processing power and low latency to prevent security vulnerabilities. Smart home devices, such as security cameras, smart doorbells, home assistance devices, and smart appliances, require flexibility in sensor choices and the ability to aggregate data from multiple sources for processing.

FPGAs are increasingly being used across industries as a key component of cyber resiliency. Their use has helped architects and engineers achieve protection, detection, and recovery functions for secure network protection, enabling them to “future-proof” their hardware designs. As always, viable security measures are the responsibility of all parties involved in the digital landscape. Organizations must stay alert to the developing cybersecurity landscape and adopt the latest technologies, such as FPGA Technology, to guarantee a more digitally secure future.

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