METHOD AND CONFIGURABLE HARDWARE MODULE FOR MONITORING A HARDWARE-APPLICATION

• Main Authors: ZESCHG, Thomas, ASCHAUER, Hans, FEIST, Christian Peter, FALK, Rainer, SEUSCHEK, Hermann, MAFTUN, Aliza
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 08.12.2021
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; ELECTRICITY; PHYSICS; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

Incoming and outgoing communication of a hardware-application component (HAC) is monitored and controlled at runtime of the hardware-application component. In this way, a kind of firewall (NBF, SBF) is provided for ensuring secure and unaltered operation of a hardware-application (HA) performing security-critical functionalities on a field-programmable gate array (CHM). The hardware-application component may interact with other components directly and/or via an on-chip bus. The monitoring of incoming and/or outgoing communication is particularly advantageous when using third party hardware-applications or software applications, i.e., applications developed by untrusted parties. Another advantage is the possibility of monitoring and controlling all the communication between hardware-applications, hardware- and software applications, hardware-applications and peripherals (PD), 10 controllers, etc. It is beneficial especially in case a hardware-application is compromised and tries to compromise the rest of the embedded device (ED), or in case a corrupted software application tries to compromise the associated hardware-application at runtime.