SoC Hardware Filter for Privacy Information Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for protecting privacy information, such as those used in cameras and image processing devices, lack effective mechanisms to securely store and manage access rights, making them vulnerable to software attacks and failing to comply with data protection regulations.
Innovation Solution
A system on a chip (SoC) with a hardware filter that segregates memory into accessible and restricted regions, using a neural network to identify privacy information in images and encrypting data, ensuring only authorized units can access sensitive information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If software-based encryption and masking processes are used to protect privacy information, then information protection capability is improved, but vulnerability to external attacks such as hacking increases
Solution Approach 1:
The memory is divided into a first region for storing privacy information requiring protection and a second region for other data. This segmentation allows differential access control where the first region is accessible only to units with proper access rights, while the second region is accessible to all units. The HW filter enforces this segmentation by monitoring and controlling access to the first region specifically.
Solution Approach 2:
A HW filter is introduced as an intermediary component disposed on the system bus between units attempting to access memory and the memory itself. This HW filter acts as a hardware-level mediator that monitors access requests and blocks unauthorized access to the first region before the request reaches the memory, providing protection that cannot be bypassed by software attacks.
2Ease of operation
If memory is made accessible to all units for ease of operation, then ease of operation is improved, but information security deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Different regions of the memory are assigned different access qualities: the first region (storing privacy information) has restricted access quality accessible only to units with proper access rights, while the second region has open access quality accessible to all units. This local differentiation of access rights allows the system to maintain ease of operation for non-sensitive data while ensuring information security for sensitive data.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus and method of protecting information by using a system on a chip (SoC) are discussed. The apparatus includes a SoC memory which is disposed in a predetermined SoC and includes a first region accessible only by a unit having an access right, and a hardware (HW) filter configured to monitor at least one unit attempting to access the SoC memory. When a unit without an access right attempts to access the first region, the HW filter can block access of the unit without the access right.