Internet of Things for Architects

Physical security

Tamper resistance and physical security are particularly important for IoT devices. In many scenarios, an IoT device will be remote and without the safeguards of on-premises devices. This is analogous to the Enigma machine of World War Two. Retrieving a working machine from the German submarine U-110 helped break the cipher. An attacker with access to the IoT device can use whatever tools are at their leisure to crack the system, as we saw with the Chain Reaction exploit. 

Side channel attacks, as shown, deal with power analysis; other forms are timing attacks, cache attacks, electromagnetic field emissions, and scan chain attacks. The common theme of a side-channel attack is the compromised unit is essentially a  device ...