ARM teams with m-payments security specialist
Published: 4 February, 2010
READ MORE: M&A | ARM | Security
Mobile payments are expected to be a significant new application for cellphones, especially in developing economies, but there are still concerns about security, and how the technology is integrated into handsets at low cost. Processor designer ARM has collaborated with Giesecke & Devrient of Germany on a system to address this market, combining the latter's specialized Mobicore operating system with ARM's TrustZone hardware for security.
The project will result in a secure system for using a handset to make local and remote payments, likely to the market in 2012, according to Robert Brown, security technology manager at ARM.
TrustZone creates a protected area in a system-on-chip, and the Mobicore OS secures sensitive applications such as electronic payment and online banking. In the combined platform, functions such as entry of passwords, or data output on a display, are transferred to Mobicore, running behind the TrustZone barrier on the ARM-based app processor. The OS maintains control of these sensitive functions throughout the transaction to protect it from malware.
ARM is also creating a range of training and architectural service packages based around the TrustZone/MobiCore reference design, the first to be released next month. This will be followed by an ARM Active Assist onsite design review service package, and then the release of the TrustZone Address Space Controller, to secure multiple regions in off-chip memory. The full reference system will follow later in the year.
Also in the mobile payments arena, Dutch-based Gemalto has acquired Valimo Wireless, a Finnish mobile authentication company, for an undisclosed amount. Valimo Mobile ID supports two-channel, two-factor authentication, using the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), using over-the-air transmission and a software client on the SIM card. This generates a legally binding electronic signature.
Mobile ID allows cellphone users to authenticate and digitally sign documents, and confirm transactions and payments, by entering a self-chosen passphrase or a PIN code.
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