Hardware support for embedded operating system security

Abstract

Internet-connected embedded systems have limited capabilities to defend themselves against remote hacking attacks. The potential effects of such attacks, however, can have a significant impact in the context of the Internet of Things, industrial control systems, smart health systems, etc. Embedded systems cannot effectively utilize existing software-based protection mechanisms due to limited processing capabilities and energy resources. We propose a novel hardware-based monitoring technique that can detect if the embedded operating system or any running application deviates from the originally programmed behavior due to an attack. We present an FPGA-based prototype implementation that shows the effectiveness of such a security approach.