Hardware-Secured Configuration and Two-Layer Attestation Architecture for Smart Sensors

The necessity to (re-)configure Internet of Things devices such as smart sensors during their entire lifecycle is becoming more important due to recent attacks targeting these devices. Allowing configuration parameters to be changed in any phase of a smart sensor's lifecycle allows security updates or new key material to be applied. Also, the functionality of a smart sensor can be altered by changing its configuration. The challenges that need to be considered when enabling the configuration of arbitrary parameters are the security and usability of the configuration interface, the secured storage of confidential configuration data, and the attestation of successfully applied configuration updates. Therefore, we present an NFC-based configuration approach that relies on dedicated secured hardware to solve these challenges. In addition to a hardware extension for smart sensors, we also present a secured configuration protocol as well as a two-layer configuration attestation process to verify the correct utilization of all transmitted configuration parameters.