Low-cost hardware technology can be incorporated into consumer devices

IBM has unveiled project Secure Blue, a low-cost technology designed to increase the security of consumer products, medical devices, defence systems and digital media.

Secure Blue protects the confidentiality and integrity of information on a device through encryption to prevent its unauthorised use, even from an adversary that has physical access to, or control of, the device, IBM claims.

IBM Technology Collaboration Solutions said that it will work with clients and partners across key consumer electronic, medical, government and digital media industries in the integration of Secure Blue into products and solutions.

IBM will license the technology, provide engineering, collaboration and design services to implement Secure Blue into customer designs, and even help manufacture the product for clients.

Once built into a microprocessor chip, Secure Blue protects the security of the microprocessor as well as the entire microprocessor-based device.

Because it is based on secure hardware rather than software techniques, it provides strong protection for secrets and strong defence against reverse-engineering and tampering, IBM claimed.

Secure Blue can be used to protect the confidentiality of all the information on a device including documents, presentations and software as well as the keys that are used for communications security or digital signatures.

By providing the overlaying on chip security layer, Secure Blue removes a major barrier to the widespread use of crypto-based strong protection, according to IBM.

While encryption should be applied wherever data exists at any given time, whether being processed, stored or transmitted over a network, its use outside the data centre has been costly and impractical because it requires a great deal of processing power to constantly encrypt and decrypt data.