Best practices for implementing seven properties in Azure Sphere

Almost three years ago, Microsoft introduced a new standard for IoT security and argued, based on an analysis of best-in-class devices, that seven properties must be present on every standalone device that connects to the internet in order to be considered secured. Azure Sphere, now generally available, is Microsoft’s entry into the market: a seven-properties-compliant, end-to-end product offering for building and deploying highly secured IoT devices. These details are captured in a new paper titled, Nineteen cybersecurity best practices used to implement the seven properties of highly secured devices in Azure Sphere. It focuses on why the seven properties are always required and describes best practices used to implement Azure Sphere. The paper provides detailed information about the architecture and implementation of Azure Sphere and discusses design decisions and trade-offs. We hope that the new paper can assist organizations and individuals in evaluating the measures used within Azure Sphere to improve the security of IoT devices. Companies may also want to use this paper as a reference, when assessing Azure Sphere or other IoT offerings.