Mohan Kulkarni: When Designing Secure Devices, Don’t Forget the Supply Chain

Mohan Kulkarni, Product Manager at PMD Solutions, stresses that device security must be considered at the earliest stages of the Internet of Things (IoT) design and engineering process. “It’s usually a top-down methodology that begins with system-level architecture,” he says. “Hardware and data protection are critical areas from a technical risk perspective.” The process involves planning, presenting the plan for approval, and then executing it.

To address those key areas of risk, Kulkarni sees three good design practices that should be a basic part of secure IoT design:

• Protection of intellectual property (IP). “A significant challenge for engineers is maintaining their IP after their product enters the public domain,” he says. This statement is especially true for products that target competitive markets in developing countries. It’s important to build tamper-proof products, but that is not always easy. He notes, “Tamperproofing can focus on the mechanical design of the product or the way the product broadcasts its data. Different security features come into the picture, but it can be difficult for a company to make a tamperproof product.”