A recent post at The Hacker News discusses the importance of proactive security measures to prevent attacks. Specifically, the post suggests that relying solely on software protections can often be inadequate for safeguarding valuable assets. Software protections are also challenging because software is inherently complicated allowing vulnerabilities to abound even in the very applications meant for security. This challenge serves as a reminder of the importance of applying a complimentary approach based on hardware security.

Hardware security combines the external protections of software with the internal protection of hardware using hardware logic and electronics to implement a security defense. This is important as attacks have become more sophisticated and since a software-only approach leaves systems wide open if the security mechanisms are attacked and disabled. By leveraging hardware logic in combination with software, a simpler defense can be built without a complex infrastructure, minimizing the chance of compromise.

As critical infrastructure encounters increasingly advanced cyber threats, it is becoming more relevant to invest in hardware-based security as a supplementary defense-in-depth strategy. Doing so alongside software security can ensure a more robust and resilient security posture. For more considerations on hardware security, visit The Hacker News.

Analyst comment (Jennifer Lyn Walker): In addition to the hardware security discussed in this post, the Idaho National Labs Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) strategy and Consequence-driven Cyber-informed Engineering (CCE) methodology are applicable as defenders proactively engineer non-electronic solutions to safeguard critical operations.