Embedded MCU Secures Smart City And Industry 4.0 Apps

Cypress Semiconductor, in collaboration with ESCRYPT, offers a secure microcontroller (MCU) solution for applications using the LoRaWAN open protocol. ESCRYPT integrates its secure LoRaWAN key provisioning and management application programming interface (API) with Cypress’ PSoC 6BLE MCU, which the companies claim allows users to easily protect and manage LoRaWAN keys and deploy a secure LoRaWAN-based system quickly.

 

Smart city and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) applications using the LoRaWAN network require processing for sensor aggregation, control actuation and for operation of the radio stack. The radio stack uses two Advanced Encryption Standard AES-128 cryptographic keys for security operations—one to authenticate packet data to the network server and one to decrypt the packet when it arrives at the application server. Cypress’ PSoC 6 MCUs ensure that these keys are only used by crypto operations and are not accessible by other programs. The radio stack conducts signing and encrypting in the MCUs’ isolated execution environment, protecting sensitive information. In addition, the PSoC 6 MCUs’ secure boot capability ensures that they power up in a secure state. Along with these security features, PSoC 6 MCUs provide BLE for off-channel communication and additional processing capacity that can be used for sensor hub functionality, providing a one-chip LoRaWAN host MCU.

 

The ESCRYPT LoRaWAN Key Management System (KMS) is a Cloud based security service for lifecycle key management in any LoRaWAN ecosystem. It is use used to securely provision and register devices onto any LoRaWAN network and to securely store keying material for the LoRaWAN ecosystem. Keying material is never exposed and only authorized users gain access to sensitive IoT data.

 

More information and datasheets are available for PSoC 6 MCUs. Also visit ESCRYPT for even greater enlightenment.