Often I am asked about what makes Cog Systems different, and how that will matter in the long term. By this point, this is an easy question for me – and the answer is as elegant as it is obvious.
So, first, I suggest we all take a quick quiz. What is the single piece of technology that underpins the cloud computing revolution?
Continue reading “Type 1 Virtualization on ARM: Inevitable and Long Overdue”
Continuing from The Past is Prologue (Part 1).
Since our founding days, our company’s purpose is to expedite the move to new technology and approaches that enables and encourages OEMs (the people who make devices) to construct more secure devices, while also enriching their functionality, and thereby enabling further innovation. This would in turn would provide integrators with richer products and tools to build an entire connected, and secure ecosystem. It would enable enterprises and users to reclaim lost productivity in scenarios where security became a burden or inhibiting (eg. Enterprise mobile users are often constrained by the applications with which they can run). The cool thing about this technology and approach is that it has very broad applicability to how we build systems (more on that another time).
The time is now. Continue reading “Our Master Plan – The Inflection Point (Part 2)”
We’ve been doing some great things at Cog Systems and have an exciting vision for the future – our master plan – so I thought I’d share it with everyone in a couple of blog posts. It’ll be fun. Let’s see how it pans out over the next few years – I’ll probably be way off, because one of the things we are great at is being nimble and able to adapt quickly to where we see opportunity and need. Let’s see.
But first, before I tell you where we are heading, I wanted to share where we have come from and share some insights into our team and our performance.
Continue reading “Our Master Plan – The Past is Prologue (Part 1)”
Just got back from the USA where we delivered some HTC D4 Secure phones to customers and showed them how to set them up. We didn’t have to show them how to use them because it’s actually hard to tell you’re using a non-stock Android phone. They all seemed interested and initially happy with the product and now we’re eagerly awaiting their feedback and questions. It’s exciting to see our products leave the development cradle and hit the hands of actual users in the real world!
Continue reading “HTC, Secured by D4 Phone is Released”
Operating systems and hypervisors use a processor’s MMUs to isolate processes and VMs alike. An often overlooked issue is DMA memory security; where a DMA capable device can be programmed to access memory in the system without being subject to MMU restrictions. This typically results in device drivers being used without security, or forcing them to reside in the kernel, hypervisor or a trusted VM.
System MMUs provide the ability to extend the memory protection controls of the OS or hypervisor to these DMA devices. Placed between the memory bus and one or more devices, a system MMU provides the ability to restrict the memory accesses of the device, as well as optionally remap IO memory space entirely.
Continue reading “SMMU support for NXP QorIQ ARM Processors”