The energy consumed in encrypting information was significantly lower than silicon-based security methods, a potential solution for users who want extra security but can't afford to drain their mobile device batteries in everyday use.
In the age of smart technology, digital information is everywhere, and data is constantly present and exchanged between mobile phones, smart watches, cameras, smart speakers and other devices.
Securing digital data on mobile devices requires huge amounts of energy, according to a multidisciplinary group of Penn State University researchers who warn that securing these devices from untrusted actors is becoming a greater concern than ever.
Led by Sabtarshi Das, associate professor of engineering and mechanical sciences at Penn State University, researchers developed a smart hardware platform - or chip - to reduce power consumption while adding an extra level of security. The researchers published their findings in Nature Communications . Communications).
Researchers turned to two-dimensional materials to build a small transistor, specifically molybdenum disulfide (American Chemical Society)
“ Information from our devices is currently stored in one place , which is the digital cloud that is shared and stored in large central computers, and the security strategies used to store This information is completely energy-inefficient and vulnerable to data breaches and hacking."
Cloud encryption and silicon are not enough
Cloud encryption is the current security mode that converts data into code to prevent unauthorized access, and the famous messaging system (WhatsApp) for example uses this method that ensures - in theory - that only the devices participating in the chat can access private messages, however. In practice, cloud encryption operations are vulnerable to data leaks and are frequent targets for competitors, according to the researchers.
“Although software-based security modules are robust, there are many challenges they face,” researcher Akhil Duda, a doctoral student in engineering and mechanics at Penn State University, said in the statement. this is".
The chip is a low-power all-in-one that senses, stores and transmits information (Penn State University)
The researchers say that the silicon commonly used in the manufacture of transistors used in mobile phones will not help to build a transistor small enough to save energy use. Instead, the researchers turned to two-dimensional materials, specifically molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) that is less than one nanometer thick to create A low-power coding chip, participants at Penn State University worked together to synthesize the molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) needed to create the chip.
The chip uses 320 molybdenum disulfide transistors, each containing a sensor, storage and computing unit to encode the data. To test the encryption strength, the researchers used machine learning algorithms that allowed them to study output patterns and predict input information.
Highly flexible encryption
"We found that advanced machine learning techniques cannot decrypt encrypted information, which enhances the resilience of encryption against machine learning attacks," Das says. "Without prior knowledge of information channels and decoding variables, it is very difficult to decode information."
In addition, the researchers say that the energy consumed in encrypting information was much lower than that of silicon-based security methods, with the result that the low-power “all-in-one” chip can sense, store, calculate and transfer information between connected devices, a potential solution for users who want security Plus, they can't afford to drain their mobile device batteries in everyday use.
“In the near future, we plan to reach out to federal agencies and private companies that specialize in smart security to connect and expand our work,” Das says.