IoT Security: The Road Ahead

ARM flexing from device-to-service to -device

Rick Merritt, EETimes
2/10/2015 09:55 AM EST

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Internet of Things will never be fully secure — nothing ever is. But an IoT security specialist at ARM outlined the road ahead in the wake of the company’s acquisition Monday of Offspark, a provider of one key piece of the puzzle.

Offspark’s PolarSSL is an implementation of Transport Layer Security (TSL), one of the most popular device-to-service security standards. TSL is widely used to secure everything from emails to Google searches.

ARM would not give financial details of the transaction to buy Offspark, but in an interview with EE Times, Zach Shelby, a director in ARM’s IoT group did provide perspective on its TSL technology and ARM’s intentions in IoT security going forward. The interview shines a light on what ARM believes should be a basic level of IoT security -- available essentially free with its cores -- and suggests levels of value-added security others could build on top of it.

Tens of companies provide implementations of TLS, a mainstream standard from the Internet Engineering Task Force for creating secure connections. ARM chose the PolarSSL version from Offspark because it is well vetted and suitable for microcontroller-based systems.

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