Secure architecture in embedded systems: an overview

Security issues become more and more important during the development of mobile devices. In this paper we propose first a brief overview of hardware and software attacks related to embedded systems and second a comprehensive study of existing solutions to protect programs and data exchanges within these systems. Security primitives dedicated to the implementation of a secure architecture are also presented. Based on this analysis of existing solutions and requirements an original approach is proposed in order to mitigate the cos t of security. Constraints related to embedded systems are strong it is thus mandatory to define new solutions, our proposition is outlined through various security primitives (ciphering and hashing) with features adapted to embedded systems.