Hardware Trojan detection using exhaustive testing of k-bit subspaces

— Post-silicon hardware Trojan detection is challenging because the attacker only needs to implement one of many possible design modifications, while the verification e↵ort must guarantee the absence of all imaginable malicious circuitry. Existing test generation strategies for Trojan detection use controllability and observability metrics to limit the modifications targeted. However, for cryptographic hardware, the n plaintext bits are ideal for an attacker to use in Trojan triggering because the size of n prohibits exhaustive testing, and all n bits have identical controllability, making it impossible to bias testing using existing methods. Our detection method addresses this di cult case by observing that an attacker can realistically only a↵ord to use a small subset, k, of all n possible signals for triggering. By aiming to exhaustively cover all possible k subsets of signals, we guarantee detection of Trojans using less than k plaintext bits in the trigger. We provide sug...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: ASPDAC
• Authors: Nicole Lesperance, Shrikant Kulkarni, Kwang-Ting Cheng
• Keywords: ASPDAC 2015, Hardware