In today’s interconnected world, platform security is more important than ever. With sensitive information shared and stored online, it’s crucial to take every measure possible to protect it. One of the most critical aspects of platform security resiliency is the ability of a system or platform to withstand and recover from disruptions or failures. In terms of cybersecurity, it means a platform’s ability to prevent, detect and recover from cyber attacks or other malicious activities that may compromise the platform’s integrity.

To ensure the resilience of your platform, it is important to implement a Hardware Root of Trust (HRoT) solution compliant with NIST standards. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-193, “Platform Firmware Resilience (PFR),” outlines a set of guidelines for securing your platform firmware to protect it from tampering and ensure supply chain security. It provides a framework for protecting, detecting, and recovering firmware to ensure your platform is resilient.

The technical security guidelines for platform resiliency are outlined in Section 4, Firmware Security Guidelines for Platform Devices. These guidelines are separated into three categories: Shall, Should, and May support, providing a clear understanding of the level of support required for each guideline.

Technical Guidelines for Platform Resiliency

• Section 4.1, Roots of Trust: Requirements for creating a secure foundation for the firmware and the platform. These guidelines are necessary to protect, detect and recover firmware and ensure its integrity.

• Section 4.2, Protection: Requirements for protecting all the security-critical firmware in the platform, not just the BIOS. This includes firmware in management controllers, service processors, storage devices, network controllers, and graphics processing units.

• Section 4.3, Detection: Requirements for detecting unauthorized changes to device firmware and critical data before it is executed.

• Section 4.4, Recovery: Requirements for how to fix the firmware and data if unauthorized changes or corruption are detected.

Protected: A platform is considered Protected when all critical devices meet the protection guidelines in sections 4.1 and 4.2, but it may not have the ability to fully recover the device’s firmware and/or critical data.

Recoverable: A platform is considered Recoverable when all critical devices can detect corruption following guidelines in sections 4.1 and 4.3 and have the means to recover from the corruption as per guidelines in sections 4.1 and 4.4.

Resilient: A platform is considered Resilient when all critical devices meet all the guidelines outlined in Section 4 of the NIST SP800-193. It attempts to prevent attacks that can disrupt the platform’s correct operation and has mechanisms to detect and recover from malicious or accidental problems.

To better understand these requirements, you can hover and click on the interactive graphic below:

Take Action

When it comes to your platform, resiliency is non-negotiable. Without it, you’re looking at potential operational disasters, financial woes, increased cyber attacks, damaged reputations, and compliance nightmares. By implementing a NIST-compliant Hardware Root of Trust (HRoT) and following the guidelines and requirements outlined in NIST SP800-193 for protecting, detecting, and recovering firmware, you can turn your platform into a fortress of resilience.

Resources:

• NIST Platform Firmware Resiliency Guidelines

VMblog received an exclusive interview with Kelly Bryant, Chief Product Officer at AMI, a global leader in the Dynamic Firmware market for worldwide computing, enabling the world’s compute platforms from on-premises to the cloud to the edge.

“Firmware security is often overlooked, but it can have serious consequences if it is compromised. A zero trust strategy starts with your platform firmware. If you’re not paying attention to your platform firmware, you could be putting your whole system at risk. Becoming educated about the risks of insecure firmware and taking steps to protect your systems against exploitation is critical to maintaining a secure environment. Don’t take your firmware resiliency for granted.”

Click here to read the full article.

Kelly Bryant, AMI’s Chief Product Officer, recently spoke to Maija Ehlinger, Editor-in-Chief of Hypepotamus, about the importance of firmware security.

“Firmware is probably one of the largest threat vectors, meaning a lot of hackers are starting to focus on the lower level firmware and software,” Bryant told Hypepotamus. Firmware attacks have become more prevalent as the number of data centers increases and as embedded servers become more important in high-tech devices.”

That’s one reason our latest product, Tektagon, is so important. Tektagon ensures no modifications have been made to firmware, helping to prevent cyberattacks.

Click here to read the full article and learn more about Tektagon here.