Security and Reliability of Embedded Systems
Final submissions due: 6 Jan. 2010
Publication date: Sept./Oct. 2010
We invite articles covering reliability, security, safety and privacy in the embedded software world. The list of issues in this rapidly growing area explode as the footprint of embedded software increases in consumer level products, industry class products, and components across infrastructures. This aggressive growth is coupled with consumer expectation that is rises with every new feature and richer user experiences in consumer applications, even though they might be fragile. For example, the average patient expects their CAT scan and diagnosis to be emailed to them and verifiable online.
Program management of such requirements presents a tremendous challenge. The interfacing of closed systems with open systems needs to be conducted with attention to the security and privacy compromises that occur. For example, an iPhone connected to a medical system or tractor trailer creates value as well as risk. We need tools, methods, architectures, protocols, and verification practices to achieve the next level of embedded systems capability, with minimal safety, security, and privacy compromises.
We look forward to publishing articles that bring out the current issues, as well as ones that propose methods and tools that will enhance security and privacy for the next decade. A few examples of topics of interest are as follows:
- establishing verifiable and qualifiable interfaces between closed embedded systems and open sub-systems.
- protecting content in mobile embedded systems that are always connected to an open network;
- integrating OEM software subsystems and ensuring security;
- reliability management based on the customer set, domain and safety demands;
- issues in healthcare and medical embedded systems with
- legal requirements of safety and security;
- issues in hazardous equipment and work environments;
- low-level protocols and their vulnerabilities—J1939, Safetybus, Flexray, CAN, and so on;
- transition from RTOS to open operating systems;
- risks, exposures, and controls in maintenance, upgrade, sensor changes, and third-party operations;
- managing product families and retrofitting security into legacy systems;
- standards for embedded systems that provide measurable trust;
- verification and Validation techniques to demonstate an embedded system’s trustworthiness
- the inter relationship between other QoS attributes (such as availability or reliability) with security, safety, and privacy of embedded software.
Questions?
Contact Guest Editors Ram Chillarege, Jeff Voas, and Brian Kain.