Glossary
Secure element
A tamper-resistant chip, derived from smart-card technology, that stores keys and performs cryptographic operations while resisting physical and side-channel attacks.
A secure element (SE) is a dedicated microcontroller designed to keep secrets safe even when an attacker has physical access. It includes countermeasures against probing, fault injection (voltage or clock glitching) and side-channel analysis, and is typically evaluated under Common Criteria at high assurance levels.
Secure elements are found in payment cards, SIM and eSIM chips, passports, many FIDO security keys, hardware wallets and phones (for example to back a platform keystore). Their firmware is usually closed, so designs that need transparency often pair an SE with an open-source general-purpose microcontroller.