"Pioneering Cybersecurity Collaboration Shortlisted for Prestigious Award"
Collaborative research between the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge and semiconductor leader Arm on pioneering cybersecurity technology has been shortlisted for the Bhattacharyya Award 2022. Researchers working with SRI International and Arm have developed new cybersecurity technology called CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions). They have focused on new approaches to designing the architecture of a computer's Central Processing Unit (CPU), also known as the computer's brain, in order to develop software less vulnerable to security breaches. The CHERI technology adds novel hardware support for memory protection and secure encapsulation to traditional architectures and software stacks. Through the UK government's Digital Security by Design program, an industrial demonstrator of the technology, which is the CHERI-enabled Arm Morello processor and evaluation board, will be rolled out to UK companies for testing throughout 2022. The researchers have collaborated on a strategy that can significantly improve cybersecurity. It is now being tested in critical industrial sectors such as utilities and e-commerce as part of the program. This article continues to discuss the potentially game-changing CHERI cybersecurity technology and the shortlisting of the research collaboration behind this technology for the Bhattacharyya Award 2022.