Impact of Adding Security to Safety-Critical Real-Time Systems: A Case Study

With the proliferation of complex interconnected embedded systems there is a need to ensure a level of security for those systems such that end-users will trust them to perform their required functions safely and securely. Incorporating security into a system invariably decreases the performance of the system. This is an important point to consider when designing embedded systems where the timing, space and power constraints are generally more stringent than in other systems. The presented case study proposes architecture for a secure inter-connectivity component and evaluates impact of the security on the system performance. The paper suggests how informed decisions regarding trade-offs between performance and security may be made.