German electronics company Infineon has integrated Thistle Technologies’ verified boot system into its Optiga Trust M to enhance security for IoT devices.

The Optiga Trust M security controller has tamper-resistant hardware certified to Common Criteria EAL6+ to which has been added California-based Thistle’s verified boot technology.

This integration helps designers defend their devices against firmware tampering and protect the software supply chain integrity. The result is an improved end-user security, which is important in industries with high security requirements such as healthcare, automotive and device manufacturing.

The verified boot provides a secured boot process for IoT devices. Enhanced integrity checks cryptographically examine that the device firmware has not been tampered with. This supports the needs of a wide range of IoT devices for smart homes, smart cities and smart buildings, among others, enabling easier implementation with little development time.

By leveraging the robust security features of Optiga Trust M, including its hardware-based root-of-trust, the technology offers high protection against unauthorised firmware modifications and sophisticated cyber attacks.

“Since the start of our partnership in January 2023, Thistle has developed a software integration for our Optiga Trust M within Linux to extend our hardware capability into the application software domain for Linux-based system architectures,” said Vijayaraghavan Narayanan, senior director at Infineon. “This enables our shared customers to quickly enhance the security of their development.”

Window Snyder, CEO of Thistle Technologies, added: “Integrating our verified boot technology with Infineon’s Optiga Trust M is a significant step forward in making it easy to incorporate sophisticated security capabilities into devices quickly.”

More information about Optiga Trust M is available at www.infineon.com/OPTIGA-Trust-M.

Thistle Technologies (thistle.tech) builds tools and services to make it easier for device makers to incorporate security capabilities into their products.

Infineon Technologies (www.infineon.com) has around 58,600 employees worldwide and generated revenue of €16.3bn in 2023.