SPRY303F May   2019  – February 2025 AM3351 , AM3352 , AM3354 , AM3356 , AM3357 , AM3358 , AM3358-EP , AM3359 , AM4372 , AM4376 , AM4377 , AM4378 , AM4379 , AM5706 , AM5708 , AM5746 , AM5748 , AM623 , AM625 , AM625-Q1 , AM625SIP , AM62A1-Q1 , AM62A3 , AM62A3-Q1 , AM62A7 , AM62A7-Q1 , AM62L , AM62P , AM62P-Q1 , AM6411 , AM6412 , AM6421 , AM6422 , AM6441 , AM6442 , AM6526 , AM6528 , AM6546 , AM6548 , AM68 , AM68A , AM69 , AM69A , DRA821U , DRA821U-Q1 , DRA829J , DRA829J-Q1 , DRA829V , DRA829V-Q1 , TDA4VM , TDA4VM-Q1

 

  1.   1
  2.   Introduction
  3.   Risk management
  4.   What to protect?
  5.   How much security?
  6.   Architectural considerations
  7.   The security pyramid
  8.   Secure boot
  9.   Cryptographic acceleration
  10.   Device-ID and keys
  11.   Debug security
  12.   Trusted execution environment
  13.   External memory protection
  14.   Network security
  15.   Secure storage
  16.   Initial secure programming
  17.   Secure firmware and software updates
  18.   Software Intellectual Property (IP) protection
  19.   Physical security
  20.   Enclosure protection
  21.   Where to start with embedded security?
  22.   Security enablers for TI application processors
  23.   Conclusion
  24.   References

Cryptographic acceleration

Cryptographic processing, involving the generation, verification and certification of various public and private keys, can take a toll on the performance and throughput of an embedded system. Some muti-core application processors are equipped with hardware-based accelerators or co-processors that speed up the coding/decoding processes tremendously. Software-based acceleration is also available, but, as software, it is not as inherently secure as hardware-based cryptographic acceleration.

Table 1 Examples of common cryptographic functions.
Common cryptographic elements
Random number generator (RNG) Used by cryptographic algorithms and hashing functions. Hardware-generated random numbers are more secure than software-generated RNG.
Cryptographic algorithms
3Data encryption standard (3DES) 3DES performs DES encryption three times to strengthen the protection of the encrypted data and overcome some of vulnerabilities of the DES algorithm.
Public Key Algorithms (PKA) Accelerated PKA using RSA or ECC asymmetric encryption using public/private keys. Helps with authentication used in secure boot.
Advanced encryption standard (AES) AES is one of the most advanced cryptographic algorithms in widespread use today.
Hashing functions (for signatures, authentication, and so forth)
Message digest algorithm (MD5) Although this hashing function has been widely deployed,it has certain vulnerabilities in some applications.
Secure hash algorithm 2 (SHA2) Processes large hash, so more secure than SHA1.