Make your device unattractive to hackers: Design in security early on

Kristopher Ardis, Maxim Integrated, Feb. 15, 2017 – Good embedded security technology is readily available, so why are smart products still vulnerable to security breaches? Security and hacking are an economic game involving risk and reward for every endeavor.

Take, for example, the Jacquard loom - one of the first programmable devices, which used punch cards to program a mechanical loom's weaving patterns to create complex designs. We don't have stories of Jacquard looms being attacked because hacking Jacquard looms involved relatively high risk. The devices were rare and generally inaccessible, leaving attackers little opportunity to execute an attack. What's more, the value of an attack was low. What is to gain from an attack on a Jacquard loom? Sabotage from a competing textile manufacturer? The desire to see comical loom patterns implemented by a machine? If the attack is hard to execute and the results are unrewarding, then the target is not attractive to hackers.

Fast-forward over a hundred years. Room-sized computers were starting to serve government, military, and big business applications. These were certainly juicier targets for attackers. The reward side of the equation was increasing. However, access to these machines was still extremely limited, as the machines were rare and they required specialized skill to program and manage. From a risk-reward perspective, risk was still high even though reward was increasing. That isn't to say that hacking in the era didn't exist. (Remember the Enigma machine?)

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