By Christophe Tremlet， Executive Business Manager， Micros & Security， Maxim Integrated Today， digital security is one of the most hyped topics in electronic design. For many engineers， encryption is probably the first word that comes to mind when they think about security. Probably only a few think initially about authentication. However， authentication is a fundamental function of secure devices or transactions. Let’s take the example of home banking. Clearly， you’d want confidential information such as balances and account numbers to be encrypted. This is what happens when your internet browser displays the green lock with https://。 That said， the first thing the internet browser checks when establishing a secure connection is that the bank website is genuine; in other words， it authenticates the bank website. Indeed， sending login and password information to a mock-up site would be extremely harmful， as these credentials can be further re-used to run any kind of unauthorized transactions on behalf of an unsuspecting bank account holder. Secure internet browsing is generally achieved through the TLS/SSL protocol， which ensures authenticity and confidentiality.