Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Aliza Maftun

Rainer Falk

Christian Peter Feist

Hans Aschauer

Hermann Seuschek

Thomas Zeschg

Steffen Fries

Johannes Zwanzger

Fabrizio De Santis

A method for granting access to objects by entities in a computerized system includes: providing an access control list (ACL) specifying for each object access rights to the objects of the computerized system; assigning a capability requirement information to at least one of the objects in the ACL; assigning a capability information to at least one entity of the entities in the computerized system; requesting access to an object by an entity; checking if the requesting entity has an access right in accordance with the ACL; and granting access to the requested object by the requesting entity only when the capability information assigned to the requesting entity matches with the capability requirement information assigned to the requested object. The combination of an ACL based access to files with capabilities improves the security of the system.

Method for granting access to objects in a computerized system, computer program product, and field device

Incoming and outgoing communication of a hardware-application component is monitored and controlled at runtime of the hardware-application component. In this way, a kind of firewall is provided for ensuring secure and un-altered operation of a hardware-application performing security-critical functionalities on a field-programmable gate array. 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, IO controllers, etc. It is beneficial especially in case a hardware-application is compromised and tries to compromise the rest of the embedded device, or in case a corrupted software application tries to compromise the associated hardware-application at runtime.

Method and configurable hardware module for monitoring a hardware-application

A method for key management in a field-programmable integrated part of an integrated circuit is disclosed herein. According to the method, a hardware configuration for the field-programmable integrated part is loaded into the field-programmable integrated part. The hardware configuration includes a key derivation functionality. Further, using the key derivation functionality, a cryptographic key is derived based on information provided in the field-programmable integrated part.

Key management in an integrated circuit

A method for verifying an execution environment provided by a configurable hardware module, where the execution environment is used for execution of at least one hardware-application, includes receiving a hardware-application. The hardware-application includes configuration data describing an instantiation as a hardware-application component on the configurable hardware module. A received hardware-application is instantiated as the hardware-application component in the execution environment. The execution environment of the configurable hardware module that executes the hardware-application component in the respective execution environment is analyzed by an instantiated hardware-application component. The hardware application component communicates with a characterizing unit providing characterizing parameters for the execution environment of the configurable hardware module. The analyzed execution environment of the configurable hardware module is verified as admissible for execution of the hardware-application component if the analyzed execution environment matches the characterizing parameters provided by the characterizing unit.

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Munich, Germany

Aliza Maftun