To enhance the security of a product or system, a component like CryptoAuthentication needs to be very secure itself. Microchip brings over 20 years of experience in this area into the design of CryptoAuthentication. The key to building a secure system is protecting the keys or secrets that are used in that system. CryptoAuthentication is a hardware security device because it protects secrets well within the silicon chip itself. Secrets are stored and protected first by the hard-wired logic of the chip. There is no firmware to be unlocked and modified that could compromise the security of the chip. Second, there are design techniques and active shields used on the chip to protect against physical attacks that attempt to expose the secrets. And third, Microchip uses a number of tamper detectors to guard against electrical attacks of the chip. CryptoAuthentication gives a level of protection that can never be obtained by coding into firmware. Along with the hardware security to protect the secrets, there are other features of CryptoAuthentication that are key to increasing system security. The crypto algorithms selected by Microchip are state-of-the-art algorithms recognized and approved by entities like the United States government. This ensures that the security of the system will be maintained well into the future. When using crypto algorithms, using a truly random number is important to creating a truly secure system. CryptoAuthentication includes a quality random number generator designed for this purpose. CryptoAuthentication also supports key exchange for the communication of encrypted data between different nodes in a system.