Hardware

The interaction between computer processors -- the hardware at the heart of our computers, tablets, and phones -- and software -- apps, web browsers, and other applications -- is governed by an Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). The ISA is the specification that defines how the processor will respond to commands from the software. It is large and complex, too large for a person to understand and reason about all the interactions between different parts completely. As a result, security vulnerabilities exist in the ISA.

There is a growing need for techniques to detect security vulnerabilities in hardware and at the hardware-software interface. Such vulnerabilities arise from the use of untrusted supply chains for processors and system-on-chip components and from the scope for malicious agents to subvert a system by exploiting hardware defects arising from design errors, incomplete specifications, or maliciously inserted blocks.

Our world has become increasingly reliant on integrated circuits (ICs). Mobile phones are deeply enmeshed in our everyday lives, we drive cars equipped with hundreds of ICs, and have come to depend on the power grid and other cyber physical systems that are controlled by ICs. Not surprisingly, the issue of securing hardware has become increasingly vital. A reverse engineering adversary may, for example, be motivated by extracting intellectual property from a circuit, cloning a design for product piracy, or creating a targeted backdoor for stealing cryptographic keys.

Reverse engineering of integrated circuits (ICs) has become a major concern for semiconductor design companies since services to depackage, delayer and image an IC can be used to extract the underlying design. IP theft of this nature has not only economic impact due to IP theft, but also compromises the security of ICs used in military and critical infrastructure.

Specialized hardware accelerators are growing in popularity across the computing spectrum from mobile devices to datacenters. These special-purpose hardware engines promise significant improvements in computing performance and energy efficiency that are essential to all aspects of modern society. However, hardware specialization also comes with added design complexity and introduces a host of new security challenges, which have not been adequately explored.