Hardware and Software Integration for Cryptography Questions

Understanding how cryptographic operations are split between hardware and software, including secure enclaves, dedicated cryptographic accelerators, and processor instruction set support. Topics include hardware backed key storage, attestation and lifecycle management, performance trade offs of offloading cryptography to hardware versus running software implementations, firmware and platform security considerations, integration points between operating system and hardware, and protecting against hardware based side channel attacks such as timing, power analysis, and fault injection. Candidates should be able to discuss verification and testing strategies, fallback strategies when hardware is not available, and operational implications of deploying hardware backed security at scale.