Intel’s New IoT Platform Emphasizes Security

Intel's new IoT Platform envisions Intel Gateways that enforce hardware-based identity and security and help translate the babel of IoT protocols.
Intel’s new IoT Platform envisions Intel Gateways that enforce hardware-based identity and security and help translate the babel of IoT protocols.

Intel unveiled a new Internet of Things platform this week dubbed (surprisingly enough) the “Intel IoT Platform.” The goal is to provide a unified platform for connecting diverse and distributed connected things.

Given Intel’s big investment in security with the purchase of McAfee, its no surprise that security is a big part of the “value add” for the IoT platform.

Intel says that its IoT platform promotes interoperability of network, operational technology and information technologies. The IoT Platform envisions  Intel Quark™ to Intel Xeon, and Intel-based devices, gateways, and datacenter solutions with hardware-based root of trust. With hardware enabled identity and secure boot features, Intel believes that you can eliminate a wide range of malicious attacks and compromises.

Intel’s IoT Gateway devices are based on its 2009 acquisition of WindRiver. They also wrap security intelligence from Intel’s acquisition of McAfee.  Specifically, Intel has embedded anomaly and intrusion detection and prevention capabilities in the Gateways that can spot edge devices that are behaving strangely – for example: communicating with known-malicious IP addresses.

[Read more Security Ledger coverage of the Internet of Things here.]

On the issue of IoT manageability, Intel also sees real benefits from a super-secure hardware based security and root of trust. Hardware and software based security – including whitelisting  makes it much easier to have IoT devices self provision using established policies and software updates.

Intel gateways will also help simplify deployments by intermediating the Tower of Babel that is the IoT – with different standards and protocols for IoT verticals like home automation, industrial automation, connected vehicles, etc. The gateways – positioned at the IoT edge – can do protocol abstraction and normalization – taking data feeds from a variety of proprietary or implementation specific protocols and translating them into a standard protocol, like XMPP.

Intel believes its platform will help provide a foundation for the IoT that comprises management, security and powerful data analytics. That will help free up developers to focus on building IoT solutions, the company said.

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