Patent ID: 8042157

Claim:
A semiconductor integrated circuit for restricting access to data within a system, the system including one or more initiator devices and one or more data sources or destinations, in which a respective one of the one or more initiator devices requests data access from or to a respective one of the one or more data sources or destinations by transmitting a data access command to the respective data source or destination, the semiconductor integrated circuit comprising: a store portion arranged to include at least one of the one or more data sources or destinations, and arranged to store information identifying the one or more initiator devices and the one or more data sources or destinations, the store portion including a first store arranged to store a list of identifications of initiator devices that are secure; a control circuit arranged to receive the data access command transmitted from the initiator device to the respective data source or destination and to generate an authorization signal according to whether or not the data access command satisfies one or more data access rules, the data access command including an initiator identification identifying the respective initiator device and a data identification identifying the respective data source or destination that the respective initiator device is attempting to access; a data blocker arranged to selectively block or allow the data access command in response to the authorization signal; and a security control circuit arranged to cause data to be loaded into the first store during an initialization procedure in response to a configuration message, and arranged to verify the authenticity of the configuration message and to block the configuration message if the configuration message is determined to be not authentic, wherein the one or more data access rules depends on at least one comparison between the initiator identification and/or data identification comprised in the data access command and the information stored in the store portion.