Cryptography Research, a division of Rambus, has announced a license agreement with EchoStar Technologies, to adopt the Cryptography Research CryptoFirewall security core for use with EchoStar set-top box technologies to protect against TV signal theft.
“We are committed to the strongest and most advanced security solutions and pleased to be integrating the CryptoFirewall core into our future set-top box platforms,” said Dave Kummer, CTO at EchoStar. “Cryptography Research’s technologies have an excellent reputation for securing content. The CryptoFirewall core complements and reinforces the technologies utilized by our conditional access partners.”
The CryptoFirewall core is a self-contained ASIC security core that provides a secure hardware foundation for signal security applications. The core is designed to protect cryptographic keys and computations within a chip even if surrounding components are compromised. The CryptoFirewall core is integrated directly into leading video decoding systems-on-a-chip, providing a robust and cost-effective solution that is complementary with hardware and software-based conditional access solutions.
“We are honoured that EchoStar has selected the CryptoFirewall core as part of its comprehensive and robust portfolio of security tools to prevent piracy and signal theft,” said Paul Kocher, president and chief scientist at Cryptography Research.
“EchoStar continues to deploy strong, proven security technology across the hardware and software level. This announcement demonstrates their continued commitment to providing a secure distribution channel for high value content.”
Previously, the CryptoFirewall hardware security core used to protect pay-TV signals from theft was only available for custom integration in smart card chips, where only a selected few were in a position to adopt the technology. Today, the semiconductor security core is now available in volume as transport chipsets making easier to deploy the security across many set top box platforms at lower cost than a customised solution.
