MUTUAL AUTHENTICATION FOR HOST CONTROLLER AND BATTERY

A method for mutual authentication between a host controller and a battery subsystem of an electronic device includes, at a battery controller, generating a battery-side authentication challenge, and transmitting the battery-side authentication challenge to the host controller. A host-side authentication challenge is received from the host controller. The host-side authentication challenge is signed with a private encryption key of the battery controller to generate a battery-side message digest. The battery-side message digest and a public encryption key of the battery controller are transmitted to the host controller as a battery-side signature pair. A host-side signature pair is received from the host controller. Based at least in part on the host-side signature pair, a battery-side validation result is output that specifies a battery-side validity state for the host controller.