| Title | An Algorithmic Method for the Implantation of Detection-Resistant Covert Hardware Trojans |
| Publication Type | Conference Paper |
| Year of Publication | 2016 |
| Authors | Temkin, Kyle J., Summerville, Douglas H. |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 11th Annual Cyber and Information Security Research Conference |
| Date Published | April 2016 |
| Publisher | ACM |
| Conference Location | New York, NY, USA |
| ISBN Number | 978-1-4503-3752-6 |
| Keywords | composability, covert hardware, Hardware Trojans horses, malicious modification, pubcrawl, Resiliency, trojan horse detection |
| Abstract | This work presents a new class of Covert Hardware Trojan Horses (Covert HTHs), which can be algorithmically implanted with no change to their host circuit's functional behavior and without the need for additional unrelated logic. As a result, Covert HTHs are invulnerable to functional detection methods. This work also proposes a formal methodology for implantation of Covert HTHs, which allows covert hardware to be embedded in any sufficiently-sized synchronous circuit. Synthesis results indicate that covert implantation results in nearly a 75% reduction in integrated circuit area used by the HTH. Furthermore, the covert implantation causes no increase in the host circuit's delay and, compared to the effect of an overtly implanted HTH on its host, the covert implantation results in a significantly lower dynamic and leakage power. These significant reductions in area, delay and power make a covertly implanted HTH highly resistant to existing non-functional detection methods. |
| URL | https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2897795.2897811 |
| DOI | 10.1145/2897795.2897811 |
| Citation Key | temkin_algorithmic_2016 |
An Algorithmic Method for the Implantation of Detection-Resistant Covert Hardware Trojans