Video: Dr. Kathleen Philips on network security at imec Technology Forum in Brussels

At the imec Technology Forum in Brussels, we got the opportunity to speak with Dr. Kathleen Philips about the all-important topic of network security.  

Dr. Philips, Program Director at imec/Holst Centre in Leuven, Belgium, talks about security in the IoT era and ultra-low power sensor networks and edge computing in distributed and heterogeneous networks.  

Smart wearables for lifestyle and health monitoring and many other personal IoT applications are evolving at a rapid pace with a plethora of capabilities. However, trust is key for a broad adoption and the implementation of a true intuitive IoT society — with sensors invisibly embedded everywhere in the environment, measuring all kinds of parameters and making smart decisions. The smart society can only become a reality when users trust the sensor technology and the privacy of the users’ data is guaranteed at all times. Data security for the IoT is, therefore, considered as one of the main challenges to solve.

Current security solutions for IoT are usually designed for communication within one application domain or network. To realize a higher level of security, novel concepts for authentication, onboarding, and end-to-end security in heterogeneous IoT networks are needed. Imec, Holst Centre, and Barco Silex are collaborating with research to leverage the technology and design expertise to develop chip architectures for secure ultra-low power sensors and new security concepts for reliable heterogeneous networks. Barco Silex will deliver the needed embedded security solution, including crypto IP blocks, to be implemented into imec’s multisensor IC for wearables and imec’s demonstrator platform for IoT. Imec will develop novel compute and memory architectures for minimal overhead of the secure implementation on the overall cost and power consumption of the sensors. In a next step, imec will study the impact of secure communication on throughput, response time, and other performance aspects of heterogeneous IoT networks.