An Operating System for Ephemeral Protection


cyberattacks can actually begin right here in the physical world, and I’m not talking about sentient robots with a bone to pick (at least, not yet)

-- IBM Physical Security Insights

The line between physical security and cybersecurity is blurring due to the rise of connected IoT devices, cloud computing, and hybrid work environments. A physical security breach may lead to a cybersecurity breach and vice versa.

-- SecuriThings


Once infected, computers and their USB peripherals can never be trusted again

Typical Attacks

BadUSB

  • Boot Attacks: Every boot, CyviZen builds the entire system from scratch, see Operating System Boot & Assembly
  • HID Attacks: USBGuard is always active, provides visual notification as to what the USB identies as and supports rules to recognise approved hardware

Yoink

Extradition of physical hardware or equipment from the office to an offsite location.

CyviZen is ephemeral by default, and support USBKill any power interruption or removal of specific USB Connected device (or any other trigger) powers off CyviZen removing data the attacker would seek to access


NOTE

Computers co-located in public areas typically have access to PII on customers, Company Hierarchy, contact details, and cached shadow data.

CyviZen is ephemeral by default. Upon logout or loss of power the system resets back to its default state with no information able to be leveraged by a unauthorized person.

CyviZen also uses Whole Disk Encryption Replay Resistant File System to protect company data.

NOTE

Hot Desking or Shared Machines, where users of the same physical hardware leave behind breadcrumbs of their PII, access and work performed on the machine.

Should a sufficiently technicaly skilled individual access a shared machine, they can retrieve these breadcrumbs and use them to gain confidential information or plan cyber breaches in future.

This is not the situation when CyviZen is used, being ephemeral by default the next user of a shared machine will have a clean environment to work from with all prior data purged

CyviCo Protection

CyviCo commissioned Halla Designs to create a cybersecurity secure enclosure for a LattePanda Delta 3. The enclosure has its own key and secures entirely on the standard VESA mounts on the back of most monitors.

We believe this enclosure with CyviZen installed is suitable for any co-located public area such as libraries, government offices, receptions, and internet cafes.


CyviCo is an augmentation of CyviZen: Responsibility is Power for commercial requirements, as such automatically inherits:

  • Data Ownership,
  • CYN: Your Digital Self,
  • Hardware Fingerprinting
  • Ephemeral by Default

CyviCo is fully customisable, and grants CyberSecurity teams full control over the hardware of any device under CyviCo control while CyviCo is running.

Example Integration