{"id":2275,"date":"2018-09-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/blog\/azure-sphere-is-here-public-preview-and-dev-kits-now-available"},"modified":"2025-04-30T13:20:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T20:20:37","slug":"azure-sphere-is-here-public-preview-and-dev-kits-now-available","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/blog\/azure-sphere-is-here-public-preview-and-dev-kits-now-available\/","title":{"rendered":"Azure Sphere is here – public preview and dev kits now available"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is my pleasure to announce the availability of the public preview of the Azure Sphere<\/a> Security Service, Azure Sphere Operating System, and Visual Studio development experience for Azure Sphere. Today\u2019s announcement marks an important milestone in Microsoft\u2019s commitment to provide an end-to-end solution for securing any IoT device. In tandem with these releases, Azure Sphere development kits are immediately available from Seeed Studio<\/a>. The development kit includes a development board built with the first Azure Sphere certified MCU, the MT3620 from MediaTek, and everything else you need to get started developing Azure Sphere applications.<\/p>\n

The seven properties: Setting the bar for connected device security<\/h2>\n

In 2017 Galen Hunt, George Letey, and I published the white paper \u201cThe seven properties of highly secure devices.\u201d Years earlier, we had seen the trends in silicon manufacturing and realized that billions of MCU-powered devices would become connected devices over the next decade. We gathered a team and started investigating, building software and thinking deeply about security for MCU devices. We came away from this investigation dissatisfied. Existing solutions treated security as an afterthought or a \u201cvalue-add,\u201d and no end-to-end solutions were readily available. A device manufacturer would need to select a silicon platform, piece together or write all the software (firmware, OS, applications), their own set of services to deploy updates and manage those devices, and develop world class security expertise in hardware, software, and services.<\/p>\n

The seven properties define the standard that must be met to securely connect an IoT device to the internet. All seven of the properties are required, omitting even one of the properties can leave devices open to catastrophic risk \u2013 even worse, it can create a situation where responding to critical security events is difficult and costly. The properties also act as a practical framework for evaluating IoT security. Before we introduced this framework, someone would simply ask, \u201cIs my IoT solution secure?\u201d and the answer from a supplier was always, \u201cyes.\u201d However, security is neither a checkbox nor a single state. It is a spectrum that depends upon the attacks expected against the platform and the functionality that the device provides. We argue that, once any device connects to the open Internet, all properties must be met to offer a solution that can be continuously secured. Outlining these properties allow someone to ask a simple question of suppliers and solution providers, \u201cDo you meet all seven properties?\u201d Having the framework of the properties shifts the conversation from one of absolutes (it\u2019s secure) to one of specifics. We hold these properties dear and we work hard to ensure that Azure Sphere meets the bar we\u2019ve set for ourselves. Here is a summary of the 7 properties and how Azure Sphere implements them:<\/p>\n