Inside Secure protects luxury goods from counterfeiters

Inside Secure, a supplier of semiconductor technologies for secure transactions and digital identity, has introduced a memory-enriched NFC-based security option designed for embedding into high-end consumer or industrial products – and labels – that are often targeted by counterfeiters and cloners.

The VaultIC160 chip has 14 Kbytes of accessible programmable non-volatile (NV) memory in addition to 1.5 Kbytes of NV memory used to hold authentication certificate information. This allows the vendor, or any other supplier incorporating the chip into their product, to store product-related information on the chip such as pictures, recipes, customs forms or manufacturing history.  Its wireless NFC interface has a range of several centimeters, so can be deeply embedded into a product, making it invisible.

By incorporating the VaultIC160 in their products, manufacturers can track their products through distribution and retail channels, and allow consumers to use an NFC-equipped smartphone — or simple contactless reader — to authenticate the product and access other information stored on the chip.

‘As well as protecting high-end luxury goods with bank-level security, the extra memory capacity of the VaultIC160 provides manufacturers with more options to create new services and convenience for their customers,’ said Christian Fleutelot, general manager, VaultIC, digital security business unit, at Inside Secure. ‘Where added memory is not a requirement, luxury good makers can opt for our lower-cost VaultIC150 solution which offers the same very high levels of embedded protection against counterfeiters and cloners.’

Designed to keep contents secure and avoid leaking information during code execution, the VaultIC160 includes voltage, frequency and temperature detectors, illegal code execution prevention, tampering monitors and protection against side channel attacks and probing. The chip can also detect tampering attempts and destroy sensitive data on such events, thus avoiding data confidentiality being compromised.

The company provides a simple software application to complement the NFC interface and enable manufacturers to customize the software to their products, branding message and other requirements. The VaultIC Starter Kit provides an easy path to mastering the cryptographic and secure data storage features of the VaultIC security module.

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