Product piracy is not limited to branded clothes or luxury watches anymore. Eletronic spare parts, consumer electronics and system components are also being faked. These mostly low-grade copies are offered on the market for prices that are much lower than those of the originals. While the fraudsters make billions, the authorized companies are suffering from reduced sales numbers and damaged reputation. Building on an extensive knowledge of the state-of-the-art in technical protection mechanisms, the Fraunhofer SIT will evaluate the best way to protect customer products from imitation and assist with the integration of standard protection mechanisms into the products.

Wherever the protection requirements can not be met by using standard protection mechanisms, either for performance or production reasons, the Fraunhofer SIT will develop innovative methods – for example the protection of embedded systems. These effective and highly customizable methods protect against reverse engineering and proactively conceal the funtionality of the protected device. As a result, products will be harder to copy and the loss of intellectual property will be prevented.

During the realization, product specific conditions are taken into account, for example a seamless integration into existing processes and manufacturing procedures. Solutions are available for low-cost microcontroller architectures (as portable C implementations) and for programmable integrated circuits (as synthesizable VHDL-code for low cost FPGAs). Software and hardware solutions can be combined and adjusted to comply with customers' indivdual requirements.

The Fraunhofer SIT offers testing of embedded systems with regard to vulnerabilities and robustness against piracy. These tests can be performed on designs, on prototypes, and on products. Complete system checks are available, as well as tests of selected components. The extensive knowledge of the SIT in the areas of IT and design security allows for effective tests. The test results can be used for further development and product maintenance.