Digital Sovereignty and Hardware Security in Focus: Third CISPA CYBER BRIEFING in Berlin

The focus of this briefing was the security of modern processors. CISPA-Faculty Dr. Michael Schwarz, one of the world’s leading researchers in this field, has uncovered several critical vulnerabilities in modern processors over the past years together with research colleagues. “For a long time, processors were considered secure. The assumption was that only software contained security vulnerabilities. When we and other researchers uncovered the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities in 2018, it led to a paradigm shift,” said Schwarz.

Open processor architectures such as RISC-V could play a decisive role in the future for the technological sovereignty of Germany and Europe. They enable companies and governments to develop their own processor cores without being dependent on licensing providers. At the same time, they pose strategic and technological challenges for policymakers, researchers, and industry.“

An open architecture is not automatically a secure architecture. Open standards such as RISC-V create more incentives to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities because of their transparency. In other words, openness helps—but security still has to be built,” said Schwarz. According to the researcher, a national initiative for secure RISC-V processors, stronger security requirements for manufacturers, and long-term academic and industrial research are needed. 

Jeanne Dillschneider, Member of the Bundestag and the Green Party’s lead representative on the Committee for State Modernization and Digital Affairs, said: “Digital sovereignty has rightfully moved to the center of today’s policy debate.“ But it must not remain just a buzzword. We see that in the current geopolitical situation, technology is increasingly used as an instrument of power and pressure. This affects our economy, our security, and our democracy. Digital sovereignty means being able to independently decide which technologies we want to use. But it also means having the capability to deploy secure technologies and to maintain control over them.” She emphasized that clear priorities are now needed to promote secure microelectronics, along with long-term and predictable funding for research projects and a careful examination of supply chains in order to achieve independence at strategically important points. The briefing highlighted how closely issues of security, innovation capacity, and geopolitical agency are intertwined. Making progress in hardware security will require not only excellent research but also coordinated efforts by academia, industry, and political decision-makers.

About the CISPA CYBER BRIEFING

The CISPA CYBER BRIEFING is a series of events that regularly promotes dialogue between leading researchers, startups, and representatives from politics and industry. It provides insights into current security- and AI-related research topics and shows how innovative approaches from the CISPA ecosystem can find their way into society and the economy.