Trojans in Early Design Steps—An Emerging Threat

Hardware Trojans inserted by malicious foundries during integrated circuit manufacturing have received substantial attention in recent years. In this paper, we focus on a different type of hardware Trojan threats: attacks in the early steps of design process. We show that third-party intellectual property cores and CAD tools constitute realistic attack surfaces and that even system specification can be targeted by adversaries. We discuss the devastating damage potential of such attacks, the applicable countermeasures against them and their deficiencies

Security and Privacy in RFID Applications

Concerns about privacy and security may limit the deployment of RFID technology and its benefits, therefore it is important they are identified and adequately addressed. System developers and other market actors are aware of the threats and are developing a number of counter measures. RFID systems can never be absolutely secure but effort needs to be made to ensure a proper balance between the risks and the costs of counter measures. The approach taken to privacy and security should depend on the application area and the context of a specific application. In this chapter, we selected and discussed four application areas, but there are many others where privacy and security issues are relevant.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

Overview of the Course in “Wireless and Mobile Security”

This paper provides an overview of “Wireless and Mobile Security” course. The course offers practical study of security issues and features concerning wireless security. The program of the course effciently interleaves systematic theoretical knowledge and practical work. The theoretical part of the course includes basic information about the architecture of wireless networks, as well as available in this area to modern standards and protection mechanisms built into the equipment for wireless networks. It is also proposed an effective method for integrating a wireless network with the existing network infrastructure, taking into account all aspects of security. More than 50 percent of teaching time is devoted to practical work on the protection of wireless networks. During the course skills to work with software NetStumbler, Kismet, AirSnort, Aircrack, and other monitoring wireless and network tools will be acquired. Particular attention is paid to the use of the most common tools of audit wireless networks, both commercial, and open source. In conclusion, a comprehensive approach to wireless security will be offered for each wireless technology

Securing ZigBee Commercial Communications Using Constellation Based Distinct Native Attribute Fingerprinting

This work provides development of Constellation Based DNA (CB-DNA) Fingerprinting for use in systems employing quadrature modulations and includes network protection demonstrations for ZigBee offset quadrature phase shift keying modulation. Results are based on 120 unique networks comprised of seven authorized ZigBee RZSUBSTICK devices, with three additional like-model devices serving as unauthorized rogue devices. Authorized network device fingerprints are used to train a Multiple Discriminant Analysis (MDA) classifier and Rogue Rejection Rate (RRR) estimated for 2520 attacks involving rogue devices presenting themselves as authorized devices. With MDA training thresholds set to achieve a True Verification Rate (TVR) of TVR = 95% for authorized network devices, the collective rogue device detection results for SNR ≥ 12 dB include average burst-by-burst RRR ≈ 94% across all 2520 attack scenarios with individual rogue device attack performance spanning 83.32% \u3c RRR \u3c 99.81%

Global Solutions vs. Local Solutions for the AI Safety Problem

There are two types of artificial general intelligence (AGI) safety solutions: global and local. Most previously suggested solutions are local: they explain how to align or “box” a specific AI (Artificial Intelligence), but do not explain how to prevent the creation of dangerous AI in other places. Global solutions are those that ensure any AI on Earth is not dangerous. The number of suggested global solutions is much smaller than the number of proposed local solutions. Global solutions can be divided into four groups: 1. No AI: AGI technology is banned or its use is otherwise prevented; 2. One AI: the first superintelligent AI is used to prevent the creation of any others; 3. Net of AIs as AI police: a balance is created between many AIs, so they evolve as a net and can prevent any rogue AI from taking over the world; 4. Humans inside AI: humans are augmented or part of AI. We explore many ideas, both old and new, regarding global solutions for AI safety. They include changing the number of AI teams, different forms of “AI Nanny” (non-self-improving global control AI system able to prevent creation of dangerous AIs), selling AI safety solutions, and sending messages to future AI. Not every local solution scales to a global solution or does it ethically and safely. The choice of the best local solution should include understanding of the ways in which it will be scaled up. Human-AI teams or a superintelligent AI Service as suggested by Drexler may be examples of such ethically scalable local solutions, but the final choice depends on some unknown variables such as the speed of AI progres

Emerging Security Threats in Modern Digital Computing Systems: A Power Management Perspective

Design of computing systems — from pocket-sized smart phones to massive cloud based data-centers — have one common daunting challenge : minimizing the power consumption. In this effort, power management sector is undergoing a rapid and profound transformation to promote clean and energy proportional computing. At the hardware end of system design, there is proliferation of specialized, feature rich and complex power management hardware components. Similarly, in the software design layer complex power management suites are growing rapidly. Concurrent to this development, there has been an upsurge in the integration of third-party components to counter the pressures of shorter time-to-market. These trends collectively raise serious concerns about trust and security of power management solutions. In recent times, problems such as overheating, performance degradation and poor battery life, have dogged the mobile devices market, including the infamous recall of Samsung Note 7. Power outage in the data-center of a major airline left innumerable passengers stranded, with thousands of canceled flights costing over 100 million dollars. This research examines whether such events of unintentional reliability failure, can be replicated using targeted attacks by exploiting the security loopholes in the complex power management infrastructure of a computing system. At its core, this research answers an imminent research question: How can system designers ensure secure and reliable operation of third-party power management units? Specifically, this work investigates possible attack vectors, and novel non-invasive detection and defense mechanisms to safeguard system against malicious power attacks. By a joint exploration of the threat model and techniques to seamlessly detect and protect against power attacks, this project can have a lasting impact, by enabling the design of secure and cost-effective next generation hardware platforms

Harvesting High Value Foreign Currency Transactions from EMV Contactless Credit Cards Without the PIN

In this paper we present an attack, which allows fraudulent transactions to be collected from EMV contactless credit and debit cards without the knowledge of the cardholder. The attack exploits a previously unreported vulnerability in EMV protocol, which allows EMV contactless cards to approve unlimited value transactions without the cardholder’s PIN when the transaction is carried out in a foreign currency. For example, we have found that Visa credit cards will approve foreign currency transactions for any amount up to €999,999.99 without the cardholder’s PIN, this side-steps the £20 contactless transaction limit in the UK. This paper outlines our analysis methodology that identified the flaw in the EMV protocol, and presents a scenario in which fraudulent transaction details are transmitted over the Internet to a “rogue merchant” who then uses the transaction data to take money from the victim’s account. In reality, the criminals would choose a value between €100 and €200, which is low enough to be within the victim’s balance and not to raise suspicion, but high enough to make each attack worthwhile. The attack is novel in that it could be operated on a large scale with multiple attackers collecting fraudulent transactions for a central rogue merchant which can be located anywhere in the world where EMV payments are accepted

Ingress of threshold voltage-triggered hardware trojan in the modern FPGA fabric–detection methodology and mitigation

The ageing phenomenon of negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) continues to challenge the dynamic thermal management of modern FPGAs. Increased transistor density leads to thermal accumulation and propagates higher and non-uniform temperature variations across the FPGA. This aggravates the impact of NBTI on key PMOS transistor parameters such as threshold voltage and drain current. Where it ages the transistors, with a successive reduction in FPGA lifetime and reliability, it also challenges its security. The ingress of threshold voltage-triggered hardware Trojan, a stealthy and malicious electronic circuit, in the modern FPGA, is one such potential threat that could exploit NBTI and severely affect its performance. The development of an effective and efficient countermeasure against it is, therefore, highly critical. Accordingly, we present a comprehensive FPGA security scheme, comprising novel elements of hardware Trojan infection, detection, and mitigation, to protect FPGA applications against the hardware Trojan. Built around the threat model of a naval warship’s integrated self-protection system (ISPS), we propose a threshold voltage-triggered hardware Trojan that operates in a threshold voltage region of 0.45V to 0.998V, consuming ultra-low power (10.5nW), and remaining stealthy with an area overhead as low as 1.5% for a 28 nm technology node. The hardware Trojan detection sub-scheme provides a unique lightweight threshold voltage-aware sensor with a detection sensitivity of 0.251mV/nA. With fixed and dynamic ring oscillator-based sensor segments, the precise measurement of frequency and delay variations in response to shifts in the threshold voltage of a PMOS transistor is also proposed. Finally, the FPGA security scheme is reinforced with an online transistor dynamic scaling (OTDS) to mitigate the impact of hardware Trojan through run-time tolerant circuitry capable of identifying critical gates with worst-case drain current degradation