Secure firmware validation and update for consumer devices in home networking
Byungchul Choi, Seoung-Hyeon Lee, Jung-Chan Na, Jong‐Hyouk Lee · IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics · 2016
Embedded systems are more than ever present in consumer electronics devices such as home routers, personal computers, smartphones, smartcards, various sensors to name a few. Firmware, which is embedded software specifically designed for monitoring and control in resource constrained conditions, was not a major attack target. However, recent serious cyber attacks focus on firmware rather than application or operating system levels, because exploiting the firmware level offers stealth capabilities, e.g., anti-virus software and operating system cannot reveal such a firmware level exploit. A firmware validation that ensures firmware integrity is thus required to detect firmware tempering attacks. A remote firmware update is also required for consumer devices connected to the Internet. In this paper, a secure firmware validation and update scheme is introduced for consumer devices in a home networking environment. The proposed scheme utilizes an IDbased mutual authentication and key derivation to securely distribute a firmware image. A firmware fragmentation with hash chaining is also applied to guarantee authenticity of the fragmented firmware image. Security analysis results are presented while considerations are discussed.