Security for Autonomous and Unmanned Devices: Cryptography and its Limits

Abstract

We survey existing literature on protecting resource constrained autonomous and unmanned devices. The goal is to secure data both during transmission and at rest, also when facing highly skilled and motivated adversaries. Our main observation is that many works are lacking in terms of rigidity and maturity, and much work remains to be done in this field. Cryptography can help us to ensure confidentiality and integrity of communication, but our analysis confirms that tamper protection is crucial to protect data at rest and the keys used for communication. In particular, if tamper protection can ensure that an adversary cannot control a device immediately after capture, one can use cryptography to secure the rest of the network.