ALPAKA – Securing Resilient Systems

Today’s production and control systems are largely decentralized and networked. As a result, traditional, centralized maintenance and security concepts are reaching their limits. Increasing system complexity further complicates maintenance and often leads to security being inadequately addressed. To avoid risks and high follow-up costs, IT security must therefore be an integral part of system architecture and product development from the very beginning. 

The goal of the project “Agile Solutions for Production Automata via Communication Security” (ALPAKA) is to secure communication in distributed IoT systems. To this end, existing solutions are analyzed, and new, vendor-neutral approaches are developed that are particularly suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises. 

A central component is a specialized hardware network card that serves as a trust anchor and prevents tampering and communication attacks. In addition, a unified security concept, procedures for verifying hardware integrity, and tests for the security anchor are under development. The results will be consolidated in a demonstration environment and presented at trade shows and workshops. 

The demonstrator showcases hardware security solutions for resilient cyber-physical systems that protect critical infrastructure, such as 6G base stations. Physical attacks, such as voltage glitching – where brief power-supply disruptions bypass security mechanisms like Secure Boot – can be detected and thwarted. 

The protection concept combines sensors to detect physical interference, AI-supported analysis, and tamper-sensitive hardware that immediately identifies altered devices as compromised. The solution is aimed at industry, critical infrastructure, research and development, as well as decision-makers and IT security experts in the IoT and embedded sectors.