How can I secure confidential data within LabVIEW?

[Nick_Hewish]

I am writing a VI hierarchy that handles confidential data received across a network and sends it out over another communications link.
If I password-protect all the VIs that handle the confidential data, will this render it as secure as it can be within the LabVIEW domain?
Or is there still a way of intercepting the data as it is passed between VIs in the call hierarchy?
Is it possible to hook into low level TCP components that don't show up in the call hierarchy?

I'm anxious to do the best I can without going completely OTT. Please can someone advise?
Many thanks

Nick

[johnsold]

Nick,

Password protection keeps the block diagram hidden from view by anyone without the password. That does not hide the data from anyone who can open the front panel of your subVIs. I would avoid passing data to subVIs in plain format via indicators and controls if you are concerned about someone seeing it. If your data is running in the LV development environment someone might be able to use property nodes and VI references to gain access to your data by writing and executing another program in parallel. I have not tried this, but think it might be possible.

Overall, I suspect that your comm links and the OS hooks to them provide greater vulnerability.

What kinds of processing do you need to do between the comm links?

Lynn

[Enrique]

Nick;

A trick I do is to use a state diagram and a local variable. With the state diagram I force LabVIEW to keep the data in memory and then outside I rewrite the control with an empty value. That way the data will not stay in the control so somebody can read it and will go away as soon as the VI finishes. This is to get the data into the sub VI. See the attached picture.

Encrypt data and keep it encrypted until need to be processed. Check my library Crypto-G at:  www.visecurity.com

Regards;
Enrique

Message Edited by Enrique on 07-05-2005 04:23 PM

[mikeporter]

You also can't see data on the front panel of subVIs that are configured as reentrant.

Mike...

[mikeporter]

Oh yes, one more thing, if you build your code into an application you can't pop open the front panels, becuse there aren't any in the built application.

Mike...

[Nick_Hewish]

Many thanks everyone for your replies.
My VI is running under TestStand, since the confidential data is being programmed into the Flash memory of a device as part of its test sequence.
As Lynn mentioned, the comm links are probably the weakest link in the chain, and there is no suggestion that these need to be made more secure - so my interest is simply in providing a matching degree of data protection.
Your ideas will help me move forward - thanks again for the timely help!

Nick

PS ... tame lion ... is that an Aslan reference?

[LV_Pro]

That has been my guess.

Message Edited by LV_Pro on 07-06-2005 08:49 AM

[tst]

Mine too.

[mikeporter]

Oh yeah...

Mike...