Realizing secure and high-speed communications with RX MCU and wolfSSL‘s TLS library

In recent years, it has been more and more critical to ensure the security of communications in the IoT field, and TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates are required for industrial control systems to support the transition from an in-house server to the cloud server due to the complexity of the system. In addition, along with the sophisticated and multistage attack methods, security measures are required even in closed environments like a LAN environment in a fab, which we had considered safe before.

TLS is the global standard for securing internet communications. It can be implemented easily to realize high-speed TLS processing in terms of the real-time performance of the control system. In addition, IETF (World Standard) compliant security protocols are required for interoperability between products from multiple vendors not only in the internet cloud servers but also in local network environments.

Therefore, RENESAS and wolfSSL Inc. have prepared a commercial license for wolfSSL's TLS library for the Renesas 32-bit MCU equipped with the Renesas hardware security engine TSIP (Trusted Secure IP), allowing users the ability to implement TLS easily at no cost and secure the data sent to the cloud by data encryption. In addition, the Renesas TSIP has obtained CMVP certification and achieved a high level of security. 

This solution can lower the barrier to user implementation and can realize high performance by the hardware. For example, the following is an environment where a controller connects directly to the cloud. In this environment, users can realize a TLS certificate, MQTT/SMTP communications, and encryption, etc.

So far, when trying to implement these security protocol layers from scratch, it is necessary to replace or modify the existing protocol block, which then changes those tasks and collateral and resulted in problems and becomes barriers to the implementation. This time, due to the collaboration with the specialist vendor of embedded devices of wolfSSL Inc, smooth cooperation is ensured between Renesas peripheral function drivers and TSIP drivers with wolfSSL's TLS library, and those barriers could be removed.

Furthermore, the communication overhead or increase in the MCU load had been a problem in some cases by adding a security layer. However, it is demonstrated that the hardware encryption with TSIP can significantly decrease both the communication throughput and the MCU load, solving this problem.

Thus, users who use this solution can implement TLS easily and realize the high performance of the whole communications by hardware encrypting modules. This solution with wolfSSL Inc. has lowered the barriers to the implementation for customers, bringing us more business potential than before. We highly recommend you consider introducing it into your next solution.