Stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans

Becker, Georg T.; Regazzoni, Francesco; Paar, Christof; Burleson, Wayne

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-40349-1_12

Cited by 207 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Becker et al proposed a new hardware trojan at CHES 2013 [1]. Their idea is to make a trojan just by modifying dopant types in active region.…”

Section: Stealthy Dopant-level Trojansmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The exposed layers are measured with an imager e.g., SEM. Secondly, the images are compared with golden images for a possible difference [1]. Becker et al assume that distinguishing dopant types in such images is difficult.…”

Section: Stealthy Dopant-level Trojansmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seemingly, Hider is now advantageous because of the stealthy dopant-level trojans proposed by Becker et al at CHES 2013 [1]. In the stealthy dopantlevel trojan, dopant types in active region is modified.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reversing stealthy dopant-level circuits

et al. 2015

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Abstract.A successful detection of the stealthy dopant-level circuit (trojan), proposed by Becker et al. at CHES 2013 [1], is reported. Contrary to an assumption made by Becker et al., dopant types in active region are visible with either scanning electron microscopy (SEM) or focused ion beam (FIB) imaging. The successful measurement is explained by an LSI failure analysis technique called the passive voltage contrast [2]. The experiments are conducted by measuring a dedicated chip. The chip uses the diffusion programmable device [3]: an anti-reverse-engineering technique by the same principle as the stealthy dopant-level trojan. The chip is delayered down to the contact layer, and images are taken with (1) an optical microscope, (2) SEM, and (3) FIB. As a result, the four possible dopant-well combinations, namely (i) p+/n-well, (ii) p+/p-well, (iii) n+/n-well and (iv) n+/p-well are distinguishable in the SEM images. Partial but sufficient detection is also achieved with FIB. Although the stealthy dopant-level circuits are visible, however, they potentially make a detection harder. That is because the contact layer should be measured. We show that imaging the contact layer is at most 16-times expensive than that of a metal layer in terms of the number of images 3 .

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“…Becker et al proposed a new hardware trojan at CHES 2013 [1]. Their idea is to make a trojan just by modifying dopant types in active region.…”

Section: Stealthy Dopant-level Trojansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Stealthy Dopant-level Trojansmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reversing stealthy dopant-level circuits

et al. 2015

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“…A very recent Trojan insertion technique by a hard-todetect manipulation of p-type and n-type dopants in transistors of a circuit [13] received broad public interest. It manipulated a random number generator circuit that is part of an Intel processor such that the quality of random numbers was no longer sufficient for secure applications while escaping detection.…”

Section: Hardware Trojansmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, it is the very nature of BIST blocks being deterministic and disconnected from the outside works that simplifies their manipulation. For example, the above-mentioned dopant Trojan [13] was able to circumvent two levels of protection by BIST mechanisms employed in the Intel processor with the objective to avoid DFT.…”

Section: Hardware Security Versus Dft and Bistmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hardware security and test: Friends or enemies?

Polian

2014

It - Information Technology

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Abstract:Hardware security is a relatively new scientific discipline which focuses on adversarial threats to hardware components of complex systems and infrastructures, including manipulation, unauthorized access to confidential data, and intellectual property theft. State-of-the-art test methods can contribute to detection and elimination of security threats but also may introduce new vulnerabilities. This article will explain this dichotomy and outline current research challenges.

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