Design Your Electronic Device with a Hacker State of Mind

Not all engineers think like hackers, and not all hackers think like engineers. - Joe Grand

Let’s jump into a contemporary engineering topic – security and privacy! Today’s guest is Joe Grand, a computer engineer, inventor, teacher, device security expert, and an AltiumLive alum. I am very excited to be talking about IoT and hardware-level security with an engineering celebrity! Together we will dive into the processes and challenges of building hardware security. There are many details discussed so make sure to watch through the end and check out the additional resources below.

Altium 365: Where the World Designs Electronics

Watch the video, click here.

Show Highlights:

• Jumping from Protel Easytrax to Altium
• Nostalgic coincidence, the beginner's project – first circuit board was an amplifier based board
  • OpAmp board -- the first board that Joe created and sold
• Bringing the hackers perspective in the engineering world
  • What it means to be a good hacker
  • Think ahead, what hackers are going to do to your system?
• What can designers do to implement basic barebones like hardware-level security?
• Understanding the different angles and levels of (hacking) attack
• Joe walks us through his hacking process, the engineer way
  • Information gathering is huge, from product documentation, patents, company profile and more
  • Tearing up a product and examining the circuitry and component identification
  • Using standard engineering tools for hacking
  • Looking at chip-to-chip communication
• What is a “threat model”
• Your device’s power supply may be a target for hacking, Joe explains “fault injection”
• Electronic badge for DefCon 27, the world's largest hacker conference Joe created
• Collaborative effort to tighten the device security, Altium 365 offers a secure space for all stakeholders
• Patch Tuesdays and Exploit Wednesdays -- a never-ending cycle to keep the system secured
• Security through obscurity for your PCB, what is it? 
• Joe answers, Is there any way to design a device so that if you do try and access it, you actually eliminate all the data or just destroy the critical parts of the device?

Links and Resources:

• Previous Podcast Episodes with Joe Grand: Joe Grand on Hacking, Badgelife and AltiumLive
• Joe Grand Talks About When Hacking and Engineering Collide - AltiumLive Keynote
• Joe Grand’s Altium Customer Success Story
• Meet Joe Grand aka Kingpin - Altium OnTrack Insight
• AltiumLive 2022 Connect: Now open for registration
• Connect with Zach Peterson on LinkedIn
• Watch Zach’s latest Altium Academy courses on Youtube
• Read Zach’s articles on Altium’s resource hub

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Altium 365: Where the World Designs Electronics