Cyber-security firm Crypto Quantique has integrated its QuarkLink onboarding and device management technology for IoT devices into the Microchip Trust Platform Suite tool.

Adopting QuarkLink means users own their public key infrastructure (PKI) and can create a zero-trust security environment for their IoT networks. This is an important facet of best practice, as defined by standards organisations.

Integrating QuarkLink into the Trust Platform Design Suite tool lets thousands IoT devices be provisioned and onboarded to one or more servers quickly and easily through the QuarkLink user interface. No specialist cryptographic knowledge is needed to build a secure, scalable IoT infrastructure or to manage IoT devices throughout their lifecycle.

Arizona-based Microchip’s ATECC608B TrustFlex is part of the trust platform for the Crypto Authentication family and is an MCU processor agnostic secure element with hardware-based cryptographic accelerators and key storage. The TrustFlex secure element is supplied with a pre-defined configuration that supports the most common IoT authentication use cases.

When either the device’s pre-provisioned generic thumbprint certificate or the OEM Day Zero certificate is used for authentication, either chain of trust can now be managed by the QuarkLink certificate for TLS-based authentication. This enables onboarding to a wider range of cloud-based or on-premises application servers. The cloud platforms supported are AWS, Azure and Mosquito.

Over-the-air (OTA) capabilities of connected products ensure longevity and security of the device as it allows features to be added and security vulnerabilities to be closed remotely. QuarkLink’s roadmap includes the capability to encrypt and sign firmware that can be delivered to the connected device OTA. QuarkLink’s GUI will allow users to take advantage of the OTA function in the knowledge that it has been implemented using the latest security technology.

“There’s a growing recognition throughout the embedded electronics industry that security is no longer an optional extra,” said Shahram Mossayebi, CEO of UK-based Crypto Quantique. “Chip-to-cloud security by design is becoming essential after so many high-profile cyber attacks on IoT devices. When first introduced, Microchip’s trust platform was a major step forward in IoT device security. By supporting QuarkLink into the trust platform, TrustFlex customers receive even greater flexibility and a timesaving, lower-cost way to implement IoT security at scale.”

• French firm Trusted Objects, a specialist in cyber security for embedded systems, has partnered with Crypto Quantique to deliver end-to-end security to users designing networks of IoT devices.

Trusted Objects’ software secure element, called To-Protect, is a root-of-trust for generic microcontrollers (MCUs). Designed for use with IoT devices in which MCUs have limited computing and communication capabilities, it enables onboard generation of unique device identities and cryptographic keys, secure storage and secure boot. It provides the foundation for device authentication and secure data transfer and supports various communication protocols. Suitable for new and retrofit applications, the secure element can be quickly and easily downloaded onto any generic MCU platform without hardware changes.

Crypto Quantique’s QuarkLink platform works seamlessly with To-Protect to add secure provisioning, automated secure onboarding to on-premises or cloud platforms, security monitoring, and certificate and key renewal or revocation for To-Protect users. Technology agnostic, QuarkLink enables thousands of IoT devices to be securely connected to servers through cryptographic APIs in a few minutes. This is achieved with a few keystrokes via the platform’s simple graphical user interface.

“With billions of IoT devices already deployed, many of them with little or no device-level security, the combination of a downloadable software root-of-trust and an easy-to-use, end-to-end security platform could prevent thousands of cyber attacks in the coming months and years,” said Mossayebi. “Such attacks are growing at an alarming rate and our partnership with Trusted Objects creates the most robust and most easily deployed defence against them.”

Hervé Roche, vice president at Trusted Objects, added: “We are always looking for ways to make IoT device security easier for our customers to implement. When we were introduced to QuarkLink, it was immediately obvious that combining it with To-Protect would simplify and accelerate deployment security in connected embedded systems, both in new designs and legacy networks. Crypto Quantique’s technologies perfectly complement our own.”