Modular Secured IoT Using SHAKTI

Hardware-planted bugs is a major security concern in today’s Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Security testing of a hardware chip that integrates a computation and communication module together is complex, even though the software would only be few lines of code. In such a device, conventional software testing approaches such as code walk-throughs and reviews can be used for detecting security vulnerabilities. However, testing hardware security in such integrated IoT devices is a challenge. In this paper, we use the open-source hardware SHAKTI E-Class as the computation element. Since the hardware design and code are available, security test of computation part can be performed independently of the communication part. For the communication part, we externally integrate the widely used commercial ESP8266 Wireless LAN (WLAN) module through the Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) with SHAKTI E-class. This ESP8266 WLAN chip can be security tested separately. Finally, security testing of the computation and communication interface can be performed. This leads to a modular security testing approach that could be of immense importance in strategic sectors. This is a first successful attempt to increase the security of IoT devices using the SHAKTI E-class open-source processors.