ID Technologies – From Industrial Tokens to International Travel

“Who’s who” is an important question, not just for the publishers of biographical encyclopedias. Identities and reliable ways to identify people, devices, and real or virtual objects have become more important than ever before as much of our lives, including the industrial world, has gone digital. The new opportunities coming from this also contain new challenges: From biometric passports making travel safer and more secure to eID technologies facilitating virtual transactions and digital certificates establishing themselves as the technology of choice to authenticate devices and actors in the industrial IoT, the tech world is exploring how identity can be represented both online and offline.

The Silicon Trust advocates for a safer digital life with secure identification technology. Its members are committed to its mission: Raising awareness for the need for hardware-based secure solutions in the digital society.

For the next webinar, the Silicon Trust is broadcasting live from our Wibu-Systems Campus in Karlsruhe. Hosted by Steve Atkins of the Silicon Trust, the event will bring a high-profile panel to the table. Representatives from Infineon and Yubico will be speaking about digital identity tokens, Lutz Richter of Muehlbauer ID Services will take a look at biometrics for travel, and Adam Ross of cryptovision will address the benefits of eID in underserved communities. But heading the list are our very own Oliver Winzenried, CEO and Founder of Wibu-Systems, and Guenther Fischer, Senior Licensing and Protection Consultant, who will respectively offer an overview of our activities in the cybersecurity space and a deep-dive into ways to Authenticate and Authorize Your Industrial IoT Devices.

Digital certificates are a great tool to uniquely identify people or devices with the tried-and-tested reliability and security of a pair of cryptographic keys acting as the currency of trust: One key is public and confirmed by a neutral authority, the Certificate Authority, to belong to the person, device, or digital object, and the other is private and secure. With a certificate signed with that private key and the private key stored safely away from prying eyes, there should be no way to tamper with or steal the identity it confirms.

CodeMeter Certificate Vault is our answer: The keys are kept safe and the necessary cryptographic operations handled in the smart card chips embedded in our secure hardware elements, our CmDongles. But CodeMeter Certificate Vault is more than that: It acts as a PKCS#11-compliant token provider, acts as a go-between when keys need to be accessed, e.g. through the OpenSSL API, it works perfectly in the important M2M communication standard OPC UA, and it simplifies the often laborious process of distributing and managing certificates by bringing the whole comfort and great performance of CodeMeter License Central to the certificate world. Key pairs are created, bound to their intended container, and packaged in a secure file that can simply be shipped over to their destination. With CodeMeter’s award-winning encryption, the entire process is safe from theft and tampering. In his talk, Guenther Fischer will look at three use cases that show the power of CodeMeter Certificate Vault in action.

• Diebold Nixdorf is relying on our secure CmStick ME for not one, but two purposes for their ATMs: They encrypt and license their software with our popular CodeMeter protection and licensing technology, and they use the added capabilities of CodeMeter Certificate Vault to manage and store the necessary X.509 certificates in the safe environs of the CmStick. With actual cash at stake.
• Industrial automation and sensor specialists Balluff similarly decided to add one of our hardware elements to their portfolio for some much-needed security. Their choice, a CodeMeter ASIC is inline-integrated and takes over three important jobs in the process: It handles the licenses for the software on the Balluff RFID reader platform, it stores the private keys of the RFID tags’ digital signatures, and it includes the CodeMeter Certificate Vault capabilities to store and manage the certificates needed for letting the devices and objects in the automation landscape talk with each other via the OPC UA protocol.
• The real-life importance of reliable identities and secure communication becomes particularly plain in the last use case: Automated Guided Vehicles or AGVs may potentially revolutionize internal logistics, but they have to be able to communicate securely to navigate our world. The VDA 5050 interface is the new standard interface for AGV communication, and CodeMeter Certificate Vault is right in the middle of it all, facilitating the cryptographic magic that guarantees that every AGV knows who’s talking to whom.

Do not miss this special occasion and listen in to the proceedings on our Wibu-Systems Campus. We are looking forward to having you with us!