Towards Trustable Embedded Systems: Hardware Threat Modeling for Integrated Circuits

Abstract

As integrated circuits become more complex, it becomes easier to hide malicious logic constructs within a design. Security-conscious hardware designers require a way to detect such logic embedded in Third Party IP blocks used by their designs. The aim of this project was to develop a systematic way to detect attacks implemented in a design. Using the Java programming language, a tool capable of producing an attacker-centric threat model was developed. The tool uses a library of predefined malicious patterns to detect and categorize attacks in a system. Upon completion, the tool was tested on a small RISC microprocessor containing denial of service and data tampering attacks. Once given the appropriate library pattern, the tool was able to detect both threats in the design.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 28, 2008
Accession Number
ADA501149

Entities

People

  • Di Jia

Organizations

  • University of Arkansas

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Accuracy
  • Circuits
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Denial Of Service Attack
  • Embedded Systems
  • Engineering
  • Integrated Circuits
  • Intellectual Property
  • Java Programming Language
  • Programming Languages
  • Reliability
  • Risk
  • Risk Analysis
  • Security
  • Students

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Cybersecurity.
  • Database Systems and Applications
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.