Secure Display Subsystem for Mobile Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Smartphones and tablets lack secure display mechanisms that guarantee the integrity and confidentiality of visual data during sensitive interactions, such as financial transactions, due to the potential untrustworthiness of their processors and applications, making them vulnerable to malicious attacks that can manipulate the display.
Innovation Solution
Incorporating a security processor that filters and processes display commands, ensuring secure visual data is displayed by managing a secure mode with signed and encrypted commands, and providing visual recognition means to users, thereby isolating the trusted display system from untrusted components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a standard display system is used in smartphones and tablets, then the device can display visual data from diverse applications, but the display can be manipulated by malicious code compromising security
Solution Approach 1:
The display system is segmented into two independent parts: a secure display subsystem with its own processor that handles only secure visual data, and a standard display subsystem that handles general applications. The secure subsystem is isolated from malicious code in the standard processor, allowing secure display functionality without compromising overall display versatility.
Solution Approach 2:
A secure processor acts as an intermediary between the standard processor and the display hardware. This intermediary receives visual data from the standard processor, verifies its integrity through cryptographic validation, and only passes validated data to the display subsystem, thereby preventing malicious manipulation while maintaining display compatibility.
2Reliability
If cryptographic validation is implemented for all display commands, then display integrity is guaranteed, but processing speed decreases
Solution Approach 1:
Cryptographic validation is applied locally only to critical display commands and secure visual data, rather than all display operations. The secure processor validates integrity of secure data streams while allowing faster processing for non-critical display updates, thus maintaining display integrity for sensitive operations without uniformly slowing down all display processing.
3Reliability
If a secure display subsystem is added to the smartphone, then security is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The secure display subsystem is merged with the existing display hardware architecture, sharing physical display resources while maintaining separate processing paths. The secure processor integrates with the standard processor through defined interfaces, allowing security functionality to be added without completely duplicating the entire display system, thus limiting the increase in overall device complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A secure terminal, particularly for protecting smartphones or tablets, includes: a display system including a screen and a graphical component for carrying out commands to display visual data on the screen; a central processing unit for carrying out executable program instructions and sending display commands to the display system; and a communication device connecting the central processing unit to the display system; a security processor for securely interpreting and/or processing display commands of secure visual data on the screen; a communication device connecting the security processor to the display system; and a means for visual recognition, by a user of the terminal, of a secure mode for displaying the secure visual data, which is displayed on the screen when the secure visual data is displayed, and is controlled by the security processor.