Security for Cloud-Based Chip Design & Verification Tools

A Shift Left on Cloud Security

Above all, chip designers want to be sure that their designs and their IP are safe in the environment in which they’re working. It’s imperative that as we transition chip design and verification flows into cloud environments, we also embed security in all aspects of the software development lifecycle, infrastructure, and platforms.

Typically, cloud providers operate under a shared responsibility model. Security of the cloud, such as the data centers, is the provider’s responsibility; as such, it’s in their best interest to build in security from the ground up in their infrastructures and applications.

Cloud service providers are responsible for the security of the underlying cloud infrastructure, such as physical security of the environment, security of the hypervisor for the compute, network security of the multi-tenant software-defined network environment, and security of the provided applications/services used for management of certain operations. Cloud customers are responsible for securing workloads such as infrastructure setup, network security within the environment, ingress/egress control, and application security.

If you’re considering best practices, much of this comes down to a shift left: putting security at the inception phase of a project and integrating security into all aspects of the environment. When building the cloud infrastructure, for instance, the architects should have answers to several key questions:

• How will we segment the environment?
• How will we monitor and manage access?
• How will we ensure compliance to the requirements put into place?
• How will we protect data when it is in cache, in storage, and in transit?

At the application level, it’s essential to scan the code for security vulnerabilities throughout the software development lifecycle. Access to the applications should be controlled as well as secured via techniques such as multi-factor authentication. Establishing different levels of data classification, along with associated access permissions, may be appropriate. Cloud workload protection should be applied to virtual machines and containers, with monitoring for critical vulnerabilities.

Cloud Security By Design

Synopsys offers our expansive portfolio of design and verification solutions in the cloud, backed by our commitment toward security. The silicon design solutions are production proven on major public cloud platforms and also endorsed by major semiconductor foundries to work with their libraries and process design kits. The verification solutions can accelerate software bring-up and system validation.

Our cloud security pillars provide an end-to-end approach for our cloud-optimized EDA and IP solutions as well as for customers who are migrating their own software or applications to the cloud. The pillars address these key areas:

• Identity and access management via multi-factor authentication enforcement and role-based access control and permissions
• Data, which involves encryption of all sensitive information in transit and at rest, and the use of secrets and certificates
• Infrastructure, which includes monitoring cloud environments for security threats and misconfigurations; protecting virtual machines and containers in the public cloud and throughout the software lifecycle; providing vulnerability scanning on virtual machines and containers; and reducing the attack surface through restrictions on network traffic and other access controls
• Applications, which includes secure continuous integration (CI)/continuous delivery (CD) DevSecOps to develop and implement security controls into the cloud service delivery pipeline, application code scanning for vulnerabilities using static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST), open-source vulnerability scanning, and penetration testing
• Threat and vulnerability management, which involves the scanning of the assets and insights into a vulnerability management and patching program.
• Incident response, which provides secure logging and monitoring, threat intelligence services, documented and tested runbooks, and resources for escalations, logging, and monitoring, which involves cloud activity logging, sign-in and audit logging, and correlation with log sources for improved situational awareness
• Compliance and governance, which involves assurance on industry certification and validation, as well as attestation to the effectiveness of controls