Computer on a USB stick has emphasis on security
A new version of F-Secure’s flash drive-sized computer, the USB armory Mk II is one of the world’s smallest single board computers, says the company. The cyber-security provider’s hardware security professionals at F-Secure Foundry have created this version of the USB armory to be secure from the ground up, says the company. It can be used in a range of applications such as custom hardware security modules, crypto-currency wallets, secure authentication and licensing tokens.
The team at F-Secure Foundry designed the device in response to security problems encountered when hardware begins to overlap with firmware. The resulting USB amory Mk II offers a variety of security features and high computational power in the smallest of form factors, boasts F-Secure.
The open source hardware design implements a flash drive sized computer, with the security features of the USB armory SoC. The hardware design features the NXP i.MX6UL processor, supporting advanced security features such as secure boot and ARM® TrustZone.
The USB armory hardware is supported by standard software environments and requires very little customisation effort, F-Secure confirms. So-called ‘vanilla’ Linux kernels and standard distributions run seamlessly on the small USB armory board.
In addition to Arm TrustZone, secure boot, storage and RAM, secure elements include Microchip’s ATECC608A and NXP’s A71CH.
There is also an internal 16Gbyte eMMC and external microSD, together with a u-blox Anna-B112 Bluetooth module.
The secure boot feature allows users to fuse verification keys that ensure only trusted firmware can be ever executed on a specific USB armory board.
Developers can engineer custom trusted platform modules by enforcing domain separation, between the “secure” and “normal” worlds, throughout all SoC components, not just the CPU core.
Target applications are hardware security modules, encrypted file storage with malware scanning, host authentication and data self-destruct, USB firewall, bridging built-in receptacle and plug ports, an OpenSSH client and agent for untrusted hosts (e.g. kiosk), a router for end-to-end VPN tunnelling, a password manager with integrated web server, an electronic wallet, authentication, provisioning or licensing token, portable penetration testing platform and low-level USB security testing.
The USB armory Mk II’s security features include internal and external cryptographic coprocessors, a true random number generator, secure boot capabilities, and more. These features harden the device against a variety of attacks, including physical tampering techniques that can compromise low-level processes like boot protocols.
