seL4 Components for Secure Embedded Networked Applications

Embedded networking applications ranging from industrial control systems to home automation and networking to smartphone-controllable devices represent a substantial and growing internet security risk. The open source formally verified seL4 microkernel provides a foundation for building trustworthy systems. Wearable Inc. proposes building on this a set of high-quality software components which can be used for the development of trustworthy embedded networking applications across a variety of domains. These components comprise an implementation of the standard IP networking suite, a TLS protocol implementation with private key isolation, and an embedded JVM compatible bytecode interpreter, together with extensions to the capDL loader and CAmkES tools to allow component reinstantiation and dynamic instantiation. For each component, an approach to demonstrating and verifying its safety to an appropriate level will be prototyped in Phase I. Approaches explored will include symbolic execution, use of type system features in a safe language, and formal verification. In Phase II, these components will be developed, documented, verified, and released as open source as appropriate, and a secure router will be demonstrated as an example application of these components.