Preventive techniques for hardware Trojans

Mgr. Manoja Kumar Das

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Hardware Trojan is a malicious modification of hardware during design or fabrication. Hardware Trojans often remain dormant and are activated only under rare circuit conditions. The thesis work will be focused on emerging techniques used after a design phase of an integrated circuit (IC) to protect against the Hardware Trojans. The work will mainly review various techniques applied after the design phase of the IC to prevent activation of Hardware Trojans during use of the IC. These techniques are typically based on static analysis of design, obfuscation of design, and defense in depth strategy. Additionally, the work will explain technique used to prevent insertion of Hardware Trojans during IC fabrication. The thesis will provide a comparative review of various techniques used to prevent activation of different types of Trojans for ICs. The work will also review techniques used prior to fabrication to avoid insertion of Trojans during IC fabrication.

Abstract:

Hardware Trojan is a malicious modification of hardware during design or fabrication. Hardware Trojans often remain dormant and are activated only under rare circuit conditions. The thesis work will be focused on emerging techniques used after a design phase of an integrated circuit (IC) to protect against the Hardware Trojans. The work will mainly review various techniques applied after the design phase of the IC to prevent activation of Hardware Trojans during use of the IC. These techniques are typically based on static analysis of design, obfuscation of design, and defense in depth strategy. Additionally, the work will explain technique used to prevent insertion of Hardware Trojans during IC fabrication. The thesis will provide a comparative review of various techniques used to prevent activation of different types of Trojans for ICs. The work will also review techniques used prior to fabrication to avoid insertion of Trojans during IC fabrication.

Keywords

Hardware Trojan, hardware security, intellectual-property, integrated circuit, obfuscation, triggers, defense-in-depth, foundry, netlist, combinational logic, sequential logic.

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 5. 1. 2017

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 10. 2. 2017
• Supervisor: prof. RNDr. Václav Matyáš, M.Sc.
• Reader: RNDr. Petr Švenda, Ph.D.

Masaryk University

Faculty of Informatics

Master programme / field:
Informatics / Information Technology Security (eng.)