Infineon introduces starter kit for blockchain security
At this week’s Trustech event in Cannes (27 to 29 November) Infineon will present its Blockchain Security 2Go starter kit. It is designed to secure blockchain digital transactions and enable fintech and blockchain designers a fast and easy way to build hardware-based security into their systems.
“The success of the blockchain system hinges on securing user interaction with the distributed database,” said Stefan Rueping, senior principal security chip architecture at Infineon Technologies. Infineon’s starter kit allows designers to quickly and convenient access solutions based on security tokens or embedded security chips that significantly increase security level and trust.
The starter kit contains five near field communications (NFC) smartcards based on Infineon’s security controller with blockchain crypto features for several blockchains. An open source android app for Ethereum and Smart contract examples is provided. The NFC smart cards help blockchain system designers integrate hardware-based security and quickly develop first prototypes of the blockchain application. The security tokens – whether smart cards, dongles or solutions for mobile devices – allow users to securely generate their unique public and private key pairs, authenticate with PIN and sign their data and digital transactions. All the user credentials can be stored in the security controller and are protected from remote attacks on software or the micro-architecture, including physical attacks in case the token is stolen or lost.
A blockchain is a decentralised digital ledger system of data (chain of blocks) that are cryptographically linked in sequence. Storing blockchain user credentials on a computer or a phone can be extremely risky, however. For example, an attacker may identify and read out sensitive information such as the highly confidential private key of the user. This could even be done remotely – through software attacks – so that the attacker would have full control over that blockchain identity and its currency, assets, ID, contracts. If a user forgets or loses the credentials, the usage of the assets is lost as credentials typically cannot be centrally restored. It is essential to increase access security by integrating a token based on hardware security into the application that protects from software and physical attacks alike.
The Blockchain Security 2Go starter kit which will be available in Q1 2019.
