Electronic assembly comprising a disabling module

Abstract

An electronic assembly for an electronic device may include a detection module to detect a security anomaly of a Rich-OS operating system and a disabling module to disable at least one secure function of the electronic device in response to the detection. The disablement nevertheless allows use of the electronic device in fail-soft mode. The electronic assembly may be implemented such that these two modules are dependent on a trusted operating system, and the trusted operating system and the Rich-OS operating system may be stored in a memory of the electronic assembly and executed on the electronic assembly.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention lies within the field of securing electronic devices e.g. terminals or smartcards, comprising several execution environments of which at least one is a trusted execution environment and another is a Rich-OS execution environment.[0002]A trusted execution environment is implemented by means of a secure processor, possibly being a processor dedicated to this task or possibly having other functions, and a secure rewrite non-volatile memory; it is based on a trusted operating system. Therefore applications depending on the trusted operating system originate from trusted or certified sources over which the user of the terminal has no control.[0003]Similarly, a Rich-OS execution environment is based on a rich operating system allowing the execution of applications of various origins such as the Internet.[0004]These two operating systems may be executed for example on one same chipset of the terminal.[0005]In addition, the trusted oper...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0028]One advantage of this embodiment is that the securing of the electronic device takes place automatically from the user's viewpoint, when verification is conducted on the initiative of the trusted operating system.

[0029]A further advantage of this embodiment is that the user of the electronic device, when doubting the security of the electronic device, is also able to initiate verification. This advantage is of particular interest when the user's electronic device has been lost or stolen, or when the user has conducted operations making his terminal vulnerable such as downloading a dubious application.

Problems solved by technology

If the Rich-OS operating system is corrupt the security of terminal data is no longer guaranteed.

However this is not a convenient solution for human users since they can no longer use their terminal which is evidently not desirable especially in the event of an emergency (call to an emergency number impossible).

Therefore in the case in which the user uses the terminal with insufficient network connection (e.g. network hole or faulty network) or no network connection (e.g. in aircraft mode) securing of the terminal cannot be made.

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