Intellectual Property Protection for Embedded Sensor Nodes

Embedded Sensor Networks are deeply immersed in their environment, and are difficult to protect from abuse or theft. Yet the software contained within these remote sensors often represents years of development, and requires adequate protection. We present a software based solution for the Texas Instruments C5509A DSP processor which uses object-code encryption and public-key key exchange with a server. The scheme is tightly integrated into the tool flow of the DSP processor and compatible with existing embedded processor design flows. We present performance and overhead metrics of the encryption algorithms and the security protocols. We also describe the limitations of the solution that originate from its software-only, backwards-compatible nature.