US 10,484,172 B2Granted

Secure circuit for encryption key generation

AssigneeApple Inc.

InventorsLibor Sykora, Wade Benson, Vratislav Kuzela, Michael Brouwer, Andrew R. Whalley, Jerrold V. Hauck, David Finkelstein, Thomas Mensch

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

patentgrep

Loading patent…

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed relating to relating to a public key infrastructure (PKI). In one embodiment, an integrated circuit is disclosed that includes at least one processor and a secure circuit isolated from access by the processor except through a mailbox mechanism. In some embodiments, the secure circuit is configured to generate a public key and a private key for an application, and receive, from the application via an API, a request to perform a cryptographic operation using the private key. The secure circuit is further configured to perform the cryptographic operation in response to the request.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A non-transitory computer readable medium having program instructions stored therein, wherein the program instructions are executable by a computing device to cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

presenting a login screen on a display of the computing device, wherein the login screen includes a prompt for a user password;
issuing a request to a secure circuit in a mobile device, wherein the request is for the secure circuit to generate a digital signature by using a private key in the secure circuit to sign a challenge included in the request to authenticate a user of the mobile device;
verifying a response received from the secure circuit, wherein the response includes the digital signature corresponding to the signed challenge;
and
enabling functionality of the computing device in response to the verifying, wherein the enabling includes removing the login screen and allowing the user to access the computing device without the user entering the user password.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 15/173,647Filed 4 Jun 2016 · us provisional application
Priority: 5 Jun 2015
Published: US 2017/0373844 A128 Dec 2017
Granted: 19 Nov 2019
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification27 codes

H04L 9/0861
Key distribution or management, e.g. generation, sharing or updating, of cryptographic keys or passwords: generation of secret information…
G06F 21/32
User authentication: using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints
G06F 21/72
To assure secure computing or processing of information: in cryptographic circuits
G06F 21/74
To assure secure computing or processing of information: operating in dual or compartmented mode, i.e. at least one secure mode

Family

Application62/171,705Us provisional application · filed 5 Jun 2015
Application62/276,940Us provisional application · filed 10 Jan 2016
US 2017/0373844 A1Pre-grant publication · published 28 Dec 2017
US 10,484,172 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

Timeline

Citations

Open elsewhere

Building an agent or pulling many patents? Use the API or MCP server instead of scraping pages. Get an API key