Cyber Security for Embedded Systems: Testing and Protecting Electronic Hardware

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Computer Science & Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2015) | Viewed by 34692

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA
Interests: cyber security: computer/network/system security, information assurance, security of hardware and designing hardware architectures for enhancing security, software security, malware, virtualization and its impact on security and Digital Rights Management(DRM), Trust, security of Distributed Systems (DDoS attacks, defenses ....), anonymity, privacy; computer arithmetic: algorithms and their hardware realization (in particular Residue Number Systems (RNSes)), number theory, cryptology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Aggressive outsourcing of electronic hardware manufacturing has left us vulnerable to Trojans inserted in the hardware procured from vendors in other nations. Fortunately, the DoD foresaw this problem in the early 1990s and has allocated an increasing amount of resources for R & D to solve many fundamental problems. However, despite sustained efforts, detection and effective mitigation of hardware Trojans remains a difficult problem.

Likewise, the STUXnet malware attack on the processors embedded in the control-system operating the centrifuges, has ushered in a new era in cyber warfare. The enemy can be a nation-state with virtually unlimited resources and time to plan and execute a stealthy attack.

This Special Issue, therefore, focuses on cyber security for, and of, embedded systems. Topics include, but are not limited to, Security of Cyber-Physical systems, embedded systems, hardware designed for secure processing, methods for verifying the functionality and integrity of hardware, robust control, resilience, graceful degradation, security of analog hardware processing and allied areas.

Prof. Dhananjay Phatak
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • securing embedded systems
  • secure cyber-physical systems
  • hardware designed for secure processing
  • security of hardware itself, at large, including
  • verification of functionality and integrity of hardware
  • Hardware Trojan Detection and Mitigation
  • robust control
  • resilience
  • fault tolerant embedded systems
  • graceful degradation of system hardware
  • analog signal processing hardware and its security, reliability
  • Homomorphic Encryption
  • Cryptographic Multilinear Maps (MMAPs)
  • or other novel obfuscation methods
  • Hardware implementation of cryptographic primitives

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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551 KiB  
Article
Hardware Activation by Means of PUFs and Elliptic Curve Cryptography in Field-Programmable Devices
by Luis Parrilla, Encarnación Castillo, Diego P. Morales and Antonio García
Electronics 2016, 5(1), 5; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics5010005 - 18 Jan 2016
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 5359
Abstract
Reusable design using IP cores requires of efficient methods for protecting the Intellectual Property of the designer and the corresponding license agreements. In this work, a new protection procedure establishing an activation protocol in a similar way to the activation process in the [...] Read more.
Reusable design using IP cores requires of efficient methods for protecting the Intellectual Property of the designer and the corresponding license agreements. In this work, a new protection procedure establishing an activation protocol in a similar way to the activation process in the software world is presented. The procedure, named SEHAS (Secure Hardware Activation System) allows the distribution of cores in either Blocked (not functioning) or Demo (functioning with limited features) modes, while ensuring the license agreements by identifying not only the IP core but also the implementation device, using Physically Unclonable Functions (PUF). Moreover, SEHAS secures the exchange of information between the core and the core vendor using an Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC). This secure channel allows the IP core vendor to send a unique Activation Code to the core in order to switch it to the Activated Mode, thus enabling all its features. Full article
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2190 KiB  
Article
Runtime-Monitoring for Industrial Control Systems
by Helge Janicke, Andrew Nicholson, Stuart Webber and Antonio Cau
Electronics 2015, 4(4), 995-1017; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics4040995 - 03 Dec 2015
Cited by 38 | Viewed by 7834
Abstract
Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are widely deployed in nation’s critical national infrastructures such as utilities, transport, banking and health-care. Whilst Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are commonly deployed to monitor real-time data and operations taking place in the ICS they are [...] Read more.
Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are widely deployed in nation’s critical national infrastructures such as utilities, transport, banking and health-care. Whilst Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are commonly deployed to monitor real-time data and operations taking place in the ICS they are typically not equipped to monitor the functional behaviour of individual components. In this paper (This paper expands on an earlier position paper presented at the International Symposium for Industrial Control System and SCADA Cyber Security Research 2014), we are presenting a runtime-monitoring technology that provides assurances of the functional behaviour of ICS components and demonstrates how this can be used to provide additional protection of the ICS against cyber attacks similar to the well-known Stuxnet attack. Full article
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1577 KiB  
Article
Beyond the Interconnections: Split Manufacturing in RF Designs
by Yu Bi, Jiann S. Yuan and Yier Jin
Electronics 2015, 4(3), 541-564; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics4030541 - 18 Aug 2015
Cited by 40 | Viewed by 7277
Abstract
With the globalization of the integrated circuit (IC) design flow of chip fabrication, intellectual property (IP) piracy is becoming the main security threat. While most of the protection methods are dedicated for digital circuits, we are trying to protect radio-frequency (RF) designs. For [...] Read more.
With the globalization of the integrated circuit (IC) design flow of chip fabrication, intellectual property (IP) piracy is becoming the main security threat. While most of the protection methods are dedicated for digital circuits, we are trying to protect radio-frequency (RF) designs. For the first time, we applied the split manufacturing method in RF circuit protection. Three different implementation cases are introduced for security and design overhead tradeoffs, i.e., the removal of the top metal layer, the removal of the top two metal layers and the design obfuscation dedicated to RF circuits. We also developed a quantitative security evaluation method to measure the protection level of RF designs under split manufacturing. Finally, a simple Class AB power amplifier and a more sophisticated Class E power amplifier are used for the demonstration through which we prove that: (1) the removal of top metal layer or the top two metal layers can provide high-level protection for RF circuits with a lower request to domestic foundries; (2) the design obfuscation method provides the highest level of circuit protection, though at the cost of design overhead; and (3) split manufacturing may be more suitable for RF designs than for digital circuits, and it can effectively reduce IP piracy in untrusted off-shore foundries. Full article
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Review

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142 KiB  
Review
Introduction to Hardware Security
by Yier Jin
Electronics 2015, 4(4), 763-784; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics4040763 - 13 Oct 2015
Cited by 51 | Viewed by 13016
Abstract
Hardware security has become a hot topic recently with more and more researchers from related research domains joining this area. However, the understanding of hardware security is often mixed with cybersecurity and cryptography, especially cryptographic hardware. For the same reason, the research scope [...] Read more.
Hardware security has become a hot topic recently with more and more researchers from related research domains joining this area. However, the understanding of hardware security is often mixed with cybersecurity and cryptography, especially cryptographic hardware. For the same reason, the research scope of hardware security has never been clearly defined. To help researchers who have recently joined in this area better understand the challenges and tasks within the hardware security domain and to help both academia and industry investigate countermeasures and solutions to solve hardware security problems, we will introduce the key concepts of hardware security as well as its relations to related research topics in this survey paper. Emerging hardware security topics will also be clearly depicted through which the future trend will be elaborated, making this survey paper a good reference for the continuing research efforts in this area. Full article
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