Intrinsic-ID Wins Eurostars Funding for PATRIOT Project to Bring Benefits of Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) to Mass-Market Consumer Devices

PUF-Based Security to Replace Passwords, Biometrics and Minimize Trade-offs between Security, Cost and Usability

Eindhoven, The Netherlands, June 23, 2015. Intrinsic-ID, a leading provider of device-unique security solutions, today announced the company and its partners have won a procurement from the Eurostars program for its PATRIOT project that applies advances in Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) to mass-market consumer electronic devices. Intrinsic-ID has partnered with Technikon and the Technical University of Eindhoven to develop PUFs for resource-constrained environments such as mobiles, wearables and gadgets. The PATRIOT project brings security technology that has been developed and proven in banking and government/defense applications to smaller, energy-conscience devices.

“We thank Eurostars for its support and commitment to drive innovation in Europe forward,” said Dr. Pim Tuyls, CEO of Intrinisic-ID. “We have deployed PUF technology for security chips where it provides the highest level of protection against physical attacks. And, more recently, we’ve applied PUF to application processors used in mobiles and tablets. Now, with the support of the Eurostars program, we can apply PUF technology to smaller devices such as sensors and wearables where it will have ubiquitous impact in the IoT space. IoT calls for a highly scalable and secure solution that can be deployed easily to millions of devices in the field. Our solution not only protects the applications; it also helps vendors in dealing with asset management and counterfeit products. The PATRIOT project targets this important and fast-growing market.”

The PATRIOT project proposes to provide a superior security solution over existing methods like passwords, biometrics and secure elements by building on the work already done and commercializing it for mass markets. Since PUF-based security products and services already exist on platforms like smartcards and FPGAs with customers such as NXP, Microsemi, Altera and Inside Secure, a key focus of the project will be on developing new products and services using PUF-enabled devices. PATRIOT will provide a secure and convenient alternative for outdated and inconvenient passwords for services ranging from e-banking to web services to eID and social apps. In addition, Intrinsic-ID will provide a software development kit (SDK) that enables organizations like internet startups, banks, government agencies, universities and corporate IT departments to develop their own PUF-enabled apps for banking, authentication, data gathering and cloud services. Ultimately, consumers will be the biggest benefactor to the PATRIOT project. When PUF-enabled applications become available they will replace passwords with a more secure and user-friendly way to manage security.

About Intrinsic-ID
Intrinsic-ID (intrinsic-id.com) is a world leader in security IP cores and applications based on patented Hardware Intrinsic Security™ technology (HIS), also referred to as a “Physical Unclonable Function”. In HIS, secret keys are extracted from the properties of chips like an ‘electronic fingerprint’ and used to offer a total protection of sensitive private and corporate data on mobile devices, embedded systems and in the cloud. Intrinsic-ID’s wide range of security solutions serve the following markets: Embedded systems, IoT, Identification, automotive, communications, content distribution, pay TV, government and defense. Intrinsic-ID is headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands and has sales offices in San Jose, Tokyo and Seoul.

About Technikon
Technikon is a privately owned research service company with 20 employees founded 15 years ago. Technikon provides research services and technology based consultancy to high-tech companies across Europe including companies such as Infineon and Thales. Technikon is working on usable and cost-effective hardware entangled security measures, develops individual security concepts and solutions and has been awarded the Austrian prize for Innovation and Research for work done within the program of “Security Engineering Services” in 2011.

About University of Eindhoven
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is a research university specializing in engineering science & technology. The Signal Processing Group at the Electrical Engineering Department has a strong background in information theory and coding. Several PhD projects in this field are supervised by the staff members in this group and implemented at industrial partners in the Eindhoven area. Staff members that are participating in PATRIOT have received several scientific distinctions. These members are collaborating in the area of biometrics and have been recognized internationally for their work on privacy-leakage in biometric systems.