Virginia Tech researcher Patrick Schaumont has been awarded a prestigious NSF grant to fund his efforts to improve information security in computing devices. The NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award is the top honor given to promising young researchers and includes a five-year, $400,000 grant. Schaumont says that as more and more information is being stored on portable computers such as an electronic key fob used to unlock a car door or the image of a signature on an electronic passports, encryption technology has not kept up to protect data stored on portable devices. "Computers of all sizes can be stolen," says Schaumont. "The way we use computers everyday is changing, so we need to rethink how to safely store information." He intends for his CAREER project to produce a methodology by which secure embedded systems can be designed. Such innovation would allow protection of information in cell phones, RFIDs, and copyrighted materials, such as audio files on portable devices. For the mandatory educational element of his CAREER project, Schaumont plans to expose students to hardware-software co-design--the development of hardware and software in an embedded system.
