Patent · US Active

Securing firmware

US10771264B2 · kind B2 · utility

5Cited by
5References
18Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 10, 2018
Grant dateSep 8, 2020
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 7, 2038

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L9/50
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method for secure data protection includes generating a firmware digital certificate for a layer of firmware. The firmware operates a hardware component of a compute node. The firmware digital certificate is an attribute certificate. The firmware digital certificate includes a cumulative hash of the layer of firmware and a nonce. The cumulative hash includes a concatenation of a hash of the layer of firmware and a hash of each one or more lower layers of the firmware. The method includes authenticating the layer of firmware using a trusted data store. The trusted data store includes a binary image of an expected layer of firmware and a certificate chain comprising the hardware digital certificate and the firmware digital certificate.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.