Crypto Quantique device management service streamlines IoT security lifecycle

Crypto Quantique, a specialist in quantum-driven cyber security for the IoT, has integrated its QuarkLink onboarding and device management technology for IoT devices into the Microchip Trust Platform Suite tool.

Adopting QuarkLink means that customers own their Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and can create a zero-trust security environment for their IoT networks. This is an important facet of best practice, as defined by the leading standards organisations.

Integrating QuarkLink into the Trust Platform Design Suite tool enables thousands of IoT devices to be provisioned and onboarded to one or more servers quickly and easily through the QuarkLink user interface. No specialist cryptographic knowledge is needed to build a secure, scalable IoT infrastructure or to manage IoT devices throughout their lifecycle.

The Microchip ATECC608B TrustFLEX is part of the Trust Platform for the CryptoAuthentication family and is an MCU processor agnostic secure element with hardware-based cryptographic accelerators and key storage. The TrustFLEX secure element is supplied with a pre-defined configuration that supports the most common IoT authentication use cases. When either the device’s pre-provisioned generic thumbprint certificate or the OEM Day Zero certificate is used for authentication, either chain of trust can now be managed by the QuarkLink certificate for TLS-based authentication. This enables onboarding to a wider range of cloud-based or on-premises application servers. The cloud platforms supported are AWS, Azure, and Mosquito.

Over-The-Air (OTA) capabilities of connected products ensure longevity and security of the device as it allows new features to be added and security vulnerabilities to be closed remotely. QuarkLink’s roadmap includes the capability to encrypt and sign firmware that can be delivered to the connected device OTA. QuarkLink’s easy-to-use GUI will allow customers to take full advantage of the OTA function in the knowledge that it has been implemented using the latest security technology.

Shahram Mossayebi, Crypto Quantique’s CEO added, “There’s a growing recognition throughout the embedded electronics industry that security is no longer an optional extra. Chip-to-cloud security by design is becoming essential after so many high-profile cyberattacks on IoT devices. When first introduced, Microchip’s Trust Platform was a major step forward in IoT device security. By supporting QuarkLink into the Trust Platform, TrustFLEX customers receive even greater flexibility and a timesaving, lower-cost way to implement IoT security at scale.”