In this podcast, David is joined by Mike Dow, Senior Product Manager, IoT Security at Silicon Labs. Mike and David talk about changes in the semiconductor industry over recent years, including emerging regulations and more sophisticated attacks that target end nodes. Mike provides the silicon vendor perspective, discussing the critical role they play in setting the foundation for IoT security and the importance of looking to the future when designing products to meet customer requirements.

·  Introductions to Mike Dow [00:45]

·  Introductions to Silicon Labs [02:00]

·  Where are we with security? Are customers asking for security? [03:30]

·  Where is the pull for security coming from? The IoT regulations mean you can’t ignore security [04:20]

·  We’re moving from ignoring security, to being actively concerned about the role it plays for a business’ success [05:45]

·  The change in IoT security over the last two years [06:25]

·  What this change means for semiconductors: more things to worry about [07:30]

·  The role of the Root of Trust for semiconductor vendors: the “brain of the device”, the secure boot process and why this is important [08:15]

·  Do OEMs have an appreciation for the Root of Trust and what it offers them? [10:15]

·  Silicon Labs are the world first to achieve PSA Certified Level 3. The role of remote attacks vs. physical attacks and why it is important to protect against both [11:35]

·  The sophistication of the attacks will grow over time and we must be ahead of the game [14:18 ]

·  The time delta between creating a silicon product and that product being in the market is quite large: so we essentially have to predict the future [15:22]

·  Looking five years ahead, staying ahead of where the world is moving. How much can you patch later? The role of updatable security subsystems [16:22]

·  You must start with good quality silicon, or everything unravels [18:24]

·  IoT deployment models and the long lifecycle of IoT, especially for embedded sensors [19:03]

·  If the premise is that that the crooks will always find a way, and always find a hole, then a good engineer will always build in a mechanism to update [19:57]

·  Why update policies are suddenly very important [20:40]

·  PSA Certified Security Report 2021 and the feedback from the industry on cost, the view on cost from a silicon vendor point of view? [22:37]

·  The state of the nation of certification on IoT and what we need to overcome: inheriting certification and “crowdsourcing” certifications to avoid choking the ecosystem [27:00]

·  Mike’s advice for the future of IoT: consolidating requirements and protection profiles [34:22]