IoT Security (S1:E22)

June 30, 2022

Christian Lackner, Segment Manager of Smart Products, Authentication, and IoT Security at NXP Semiconductors joins our own Dr. Manfred Mueller, COO and GM of Identity, and Amir Khoshniyati, VP and GM of Transponders, to chat about security in the IoT, our 20+ year partnership, and our latest NFC collaboration.

Full Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01): You're listening to Humans in Tech. Our podcast explores today's most transformative technology and the trends of tomorrow bringing together the brightest minds in and outside of our industry. We unpack what's new in physical access, identity verification, cybersecurity, and IOT ecosystems. We reach beyond the physical world, discuss our digital transformation as a species, and dive into the emerging figital experience. Join us on our journey as we discover just how connected the future will be and how we will fit into that picture. Your host is Leigh Dow, VP of global marketing at Identiv. Leigh Dow (00:43): Welcome. Thanks for tuning in today. We're joined by Christian Lackner, segment manager of smart products, authentication, and IOT security at NXP semiconductors. Also joining us Dr. Manfred Mueller, COO, and GM of identity at Identiv and Amir Koshniyati, VP and GM of transponders at Identiv, so glad for the gang to be all here today. Thanks for joining us. NXP and Identiv have been collaborating for a very long time. Manfred, can you kick us off with some background on the relationship? Manfred Mueller (01:14): Sure, absolutely. I'm really happy to have Christian on this call, because he and I go back a long time. The relationship with NXP certainly is going to be two decades, at least. We have also joined the NFC forum in about 2005 or 2006, since then we have started to really work very closely with NXP. We have been utilizing a lot of their great products in numerous projects so far. Both companies had a lot of joint trade and other events where we were demonstrating and exhibiting our joint activities and solutions that we came up with. Manfred Mueller (02:02): In general, we have always been a very close ally. They are usually consulting us when next generation IC's are under development. They consult us with regard to features, functionalities to be added going forward. We are, in many cases, some of the first ones that provide NFC tags or RFID labels and such either for their customers or for joint demo kits. It's a really close relationship that we are having. Manfred Mueller (02:32): Other than that, I always describe NXP as our enhanced sales force. We have lots of joint projects that we are driving together and that's also the reason why we have had a lot of buzz created over the last few years and so on. Again, that's why I'm really happy to have Christian on this call. Leigh Dow (02:51): Wonderful Christian, let's take a minute to talk about your latest innovation in the smart, secure product space. The new NXP NTAG semiconductors 22x DNA chip device. What are the differentiators here? Christian Lackner (03:06): Yeah, thank you very much. Maybe, first of all, thanks a lot Man for appreciating as well the whole collaboration here and it's a real big honor for me to be here today talking about our new product introduction that we bringing to the market together with Identiv. Christian Lackner (03:22): Yes, so with the NTAG due to X DNA we continue our success story in the secure and CTEx area, which was initiated first by the NTAG 424 DNA. By the NTAG 424 DNA was primarily aiming to protect luxury goods with a long life cycle from counterfeit with the 22x DNA we can aim it right now fast moving goods, whichever shorter life cycle it. It's addressing as well optimization here from protective from counterfeits, but the real innovative thing here is the ability of passive capacitive sensing, which opens a myriad of new applications in medical, personal healthcare, home appliances, and brand protection. Christian Lackner (04:06): The key points of the product are, it's security certified becoming criteria process, which is a similar process which is used to attest the security of bank cards and government cards such as passports. It has a dual tamper mode detection, so that the one thing is where you can detect whether a buyer security seal is broken, which is open-closed. The innovative thing is with the dual mode we have, now, a second way of measuring things that's a capacitive measurement. You can think of this two opposite metal plates, which if they change their position to each other or the condition between them would be changing like humidity, pressure the on a material you would be able to measure any status in between. It's not just a digital thing of zero one there's a lot of granularity in between, which allows them to measure, for example, fill level detection. Christian Lackner (05:02): All that one is happening without its own powers. It's not battery powered. The whole, IC solution is well known for the CTEx. It's [inaudible 00:05:12], for example, it would be driven by FC smartphone, which at the same time would [inaudible 00:05:17], as well, the user interface for interaction with the content information that is associated to such attack. Leigh Dow (05:26): Wonderful. Identiv just launched NFC tag designs based on NXP's new NTAG 22x DNA chip series for anti-counterfeiting, tamper detection, and battery less condition sensing. Amir, which markets are poised for the most growth in status detection and sensing solutions. Amir Koshniyati (05:44): This technology is really building on years of demand and different capabilities that the market has been asking for. Again, the Identiv, NXP relationship, that we alluded to earlier, is built on a strategic partnership to really look at the best-in-class IC's and the best-in-class antenna designs coming together to really meet that market demand. Historically, what we've seen is that accelerating out of COVID pharma, healthcare, and medical device applications are at an all time high. This is really a best-in-class synergy around this capability being built upon the foundation of standard authentication. As Christian alluded to, much more capabilities all built in within one IC. You get the authentication, the tamper, and then you get really this capacitor sensing that's built in. It positions very well across many of these use cases within pharma, healthcare, and medical devices. It's a core focus for Identiv overall, but really it's convoluting many years of demand all in one for the best in class IC and antenna coming together to serve that industry. Leigh Dow (06:58): With both of your comments, both Christian and Amir. It's really obvious that there's a lot more capability here with this solution. Of course, as we're moving into the future of being more and more connected with IOT ecosystems. Christian, what is the future of that connected IOT ecosystems look like over the next few years? Christian Lackner (07:18): Well, I think the growth has started here. I think, the latest initiatives that matter, which is the new standard for home automation connectivity for device certification, we do see the industry is driving from an early adoption to a mass market demand with a need for interoperability. One thing is quite clear in such a connected world security and trust will become quickly equipped mandate as the impact of attacks and fraud will exponentially grow. As such, we do see a double digit growth in the secure authenticators and secure elements going forward in the years to come and helping device and consumers to securely encrypt within the IOT space. Christian Lackner (08:04): At NXP, we have set ourselves the mission to manage the complexity of security for our customers, to keep solution billing at the easiest levels, by maintaining still the highest level of security and trust. This starts with our contact and contactless authenticators, which from a bigger picture, our connecting by interaction with the internet and need to create a safe transaction as well as [inaudible 00:08:28] level of trust as the product as we're talking here today. When we move then over fully fledged to secure elements, which are securely managing the full life cycle in the IOT devices, which is including at the station commissioning key update, firmly update, and even putting a product end of life for all the IOT devices. It finally ends in our portfolio, as well, with secure on chip solutions for connectivity solutions, with Bluetooth, and [inaudible 00:08:59], and rounded off by high end secure application specific and generic micro [inaudible 00:09:06]. Leigh Dow (09:06): Manfred or Amir, anything you want to add to what Christian said? Manfred Mueller (09:10): Well, there's really not much to add, because Christian is really the expert with regard to the features sets and functionality. We know that we have identified a range of industry verticals and applications that will be perfectly suited for this next generation NTAG 22x family, as much as we have already found homes for all of their other portfolio products. From that point of view, we are really excited to see a big wave of business projects and opportunities coming across us. Leigh Dow (09:45): How about you Amir? Amir Koshniyati (09:48): Absolutely. I think Christian gave a really nice overview on the capability matrix and the level of depth behind it. Really, as we look at the future and where the products are going overall, they're going for more agility. Again, the capabilities of the chip it's really bringing best-in-class authentication, best-in-class, security that we're building in with the encryption, and then it's adding these added capabilities around tamper, moisture, detection, capacitive of sensing all the capabilities we touched on earlier. Amir Koshniyati (10:19): Really, as we get to the next tier here it's the data itself that's bringing the most value. We are creating all these digital objects through all these physical items and creating trigger points to engage that data. Whatever capability set you really want to focus on and now we're finding the best-in-class melting pot of all these capabilities. That's really where we're going to maximize the value. It's being able to digest the data and bring the consumers, whether it's in the healthcare realm or any anywhere else within the medical devices closer to the brands, so they get best in class usage around the products and they get their assurance, because many of these are built around compliancy. When you get into this level of depth you want to make sure that the compliancy is there, but also at the same time the brands are aware of what their products are doing and they can maximize the usage behind it. Amir Koshniyati (11:10): I would really base the value and where we're going around the data side. As Christian also mentioned earlier, we're at the beginning of the trajectory here. We're getting used to contactless technologies. These are the early stages. As the adoption rates go up that's what we anticipate that the data is going to go up with it, because we're going to get more usage behind these products in themselves. Leigh Dow (11:34): Well, I'm sure with the three of you being early adopters and now seeing this drive to mass market demand, I'm sure that's got to be really exciting for all three of you. Christian, we ask everyone this question, any additional closing thoughts on our technology-centric hyper-connected world? Christian Lackner (11:51): Oh, it might be not as visionary, but I was thinking about it today, so... Today, a lot of people think connectivity that we have today is a little bit of burden, because it's using up your time that you have available, but I think going to hyper-connectivity it might be the point where this is changing. We are not spent with all the social media flat of media information, which is useless. Things definitely, I think, become more intelligent. With more connectivity, I believe, the future will be that we are getting a bit back more time for ourselves as it will be much more flexibility how we interact in our future in our professional world, but as well in a private environment. Therefore, I think the hyper-connectivity and intellections with the security in the internet of things will take a lot of things away from us that we have to take care of today manually interaction. Leigh Dow (12:52): Well, if the vision of the future is that we get more time back for ourselves I can definitely subscribe to that train of thought. It was really great to have all three of you on today. I always learned so much from each of you every time I sit down with you. Thanks again for calling in. Christian Lackner (13:09): Thank you very much and thanks Amir. Amir Koshniyati (13:11): Thank you for having us. Speaker 1 (13:12): Smart, simple, single use technology can put valuable time back in the hands of healthcare workers and around the world Identiv's capacitive fill level sensing tags are the first passive NFC enabled sensing solution to monitor fill levels. Simply attach the tag to any cartridge, bottle, or a liquid filled container to sense the fill level, no external sensors or special equipment required. The tags can also sense if syringes or auto-injectors have been properly administered. Empowering clinical trials, patient compliance, and telemedicine applications. Learn more at identiv.com. Speaker 1 (13:53): Physical security, identity verification, the IOT. The hyper-connectivity of our lives will only grow more pervasive as technology becomes more automated and experiences more augmented it's up to us to preserve our humanity and use new tools and trends for good. The only question is, are we up for the challenge.