The need for Virtual Private Network (VPN)
Applications running on connected embedded devices need to communicate securely with remote peers (other embedded devices, gateways or servers): they must be assured that their communications cannot be listened to or tampered with on the way. Even on “private” networks it is never clear exactly who could be listening.
Providing this level of security requires experience with cryptography and protocol design, in order to achieve strong authentication between connected peer, and a robust messages encryption to maintain their integrity and confidentiality.
Limitations of Traditional VPN Implementations
Traditional VPN clients cannot be fully trusted because they run in the same address space as the underlying Rich OS (Android, Linux, etc.). They are therefore vulnerable to the large number of local and remote attacks that affect traditional Rich OSs. These attacks can have a direct impact on:
Confidentiality and Authenticity
If an attacker can use a local application to remotely inject a new certificate in the certificate storage to perform a Man-In-The-Middle attack, or read the private certificate to impersonate the device, the confidentiality or authenticity of exchanged messages is not guaranteed, therefore the communication cannot be really trusted.
Availability
If an attacker can use a local application to erase the certificates store of the VPN client, it will prevent the device from either authenticating remote servers or from being authenticated by the remote server, leading to availability issues. This means that compromised devices cannot be recovered or controlled remotely.
Furthermore, such attacks can be used as stepping stones for further, more sophisticated attacks.
Why ProvenVPN
ProvenVPN is a secure software application that benefit from ProvenRun’s years of expertise in developing security applications for embedded systems. Its architecture relies on the use of a secure OS, to provide a secure execution environment that is protected from attacks that could be performed from the Rich OS, to guarantee the authenticity, confidentiality and availability of the VPN certificates.
Features:
- Secure boot
- Secure OS protection
- Secure certificate management
- Cryptographic operations
Benefits:
- No OS modifications
- Fit the requirements and architectures of most deployment
- Protect and isolates critical assets
- Leverages on Hardware Root of Trust
- High security assurance level
Supported Hardware:
ProvenVPN is available on selected ARM Cortex-A microprocessor leveraging on the TrustZone hardware isolation.
Please contact us for more details.
