Thales, Telstra, Microsoft Developing Security for IOT Devices

Thales and Australian telecom company, Telstra are working with Microsoft and Arduino to develop security systems for connected Internet of Things ( IoT) devices, by implementing a solution that enables trusted and secure end-to-end communication between device and cloud.

The solution enables instant and standardised mutual authentication between a device and a cloud platform via cellular networks, while fully-complying with GSMA IoT SAFE security specifications.

Within the IoT ecosystem, billions of devices collect, process and send data to the cloud, where a range of different IoT services are executed. To enable security, the IoT cloud service must have absolute trust in data received from connected devices.

Equally, devices need to trust the cloud. This is only possible if the device and server are mutually authenticated. However, the IoT devices market is so fragmented - with a patchwork of different operating systems and chips being utilised - that security services scalability and duplication are very limited.

That’s why Thales, Telstra, Microsoft[1] and Arduino[2] decided to team up to work on a solution that addresses the challenge of securely and efficiently connecting IoT devices to clouds in the most simplified way and through cellular networks. The level of trust required is enabled by a sophisticated ‘security-by-design’ approach for any IoT devices based on field-proven and standardised SIM or eSIM technology.

As a result, as soon as an IoT device is switched on, any SIM or eSIM featuring Thales’s IoT SAFE application is automatically and securely provisioned. Once the IoT device gets a proper Digital Certificate created and stored in the SIM/eSIM, then a trusted communication between the device and the server is permitted, in full respect of data integrity and confidentiality.