FPGA-Based Encryption for Peer-to-Peer Industrial Network Links

Securing company networks has become a critical aspect of modern industrial environments. With the recent rise of Industry 4.0 concepts, it became essential to extend IT security across increasingly connected factories. However, in the highly specialised field of operations technology and embedded systems, not every device can run additional security measures, as they are old or designed with sparse resources. We introduce here the concept of a “universal” encryption device that enables the securing of communication links in a direct peer-to-peer industrial setting by using the AES-128 encryption standard. We propose a design of such an encryption device by developing a modular system architecture with decoupled communication and cryptography. The resulting architecture is implemented as a proof of concept for Ethernet communication and tested through simulation as well as on an FPGA device. The impact of the encryption device is briefly investigated in a lab setup, followed by conclusions on system stability and performance.