Keynotes

Security is built in layers. Each time more eyes are on a layer, more issues are found which improves the next product generation. Unfortunately, ASIC design and fabrication has traditionally been opaque leading to one of the few areas where “security through obscurity” still persists. Worse, the closed nature of these designs incentivizes vulnerability concealment over remediation.

The rise of mature FOSS EDA tools changes everything. For the first time, we can build fully open source security hardware, making designs that can be audited, reproduced, and vetted at every layer of the stack. Projects like OpenTitan and Caliptra are already demonstrating that open secure elements aren’t just academic curiosities but actually shipping.

We’ll examine what full-stack transparency buys you in terms of security assurance, where the open ecosystem still has gaps, and what it will take to make FOSS the default.

The future of hardware security is open. Let’s build it together.

In August 2024, the NIST standardization effort for post-quantum cryptography produced the first 3 standards: ML-KEM for key encapsulation and ML-DSA and SLH-DSA for signatures. The publication of those standards initiated a massive effort to deploy these schemes in systems and applications. Already today, all major web browsers support ML-KEM for key agreement in TLS, the Signal messenger and Apple’s iMessage upgraded their cryptographic protocols to integrate ML-KEM, and the automotive industry started putting cars on the road whose software updates are secured with ML-DSA. Most of these early successful deployments are software-only; but also upgrades to hardware roots of trust are underway to enable efficient and secure implementation of these novel algorithms. In my talk I will look back at the NIST standardization effort and then focus on the role that trusted open-source silicon is expected to play in upgrading our cryptographic systems to post-quantum schemes.