5,317 research outputs found
Experimental evaluation of two software countermeasures against fault attacks
Injection of transient faults can be used as a way to attack embedded
systems. On embedded processors such as microcontrollers, several studies
showed that such a transient fault injection with glitches or electromagnetic
pulses could corrupt either the data loads from the memory or the assembly
instructions executed by the circuit. Some countermeasure schemes which rely on
temporal redundancy have been proposed to handle this issue. Among them,
several schemes add this redundancy at assembly instruction level. In this
paper, we perform a practical evaluation for two of those countermeasure
schemes by using a pulsed electromagnetic fault injection process on a 32-bit
microcontroller. We provide some necessary conditions for an efficient
implementation of those countermeasure schemes in practice. We also evaluate
their efficiency and highlight their limitations. To the best of our knowledge,
no experimental evaluation of the security of such instruction-level
countermeasure schemes has been published yet.Comment: 6 pages, 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented
Security and Trust (HOST), Arlington : United States (2014
Multilevel Runtime Verification for Safety and Security Critical Cyber Physical Systems from a Model Based Engineering Perspective
Advanced embedded system technology is one of the key driving forces behind the rapid growth of Cyber-Physical System (CPS) applications. CPS consists of multiple coordinating and cooperating components, which are often software-intensive and interact with each other to achieve unprecedented tasks. Such highly integrated CPSs have complex interaction failures, attack surfaces, and attack vectors that we have to protect and secure against. This dissertation advances the state-of-the-art by developing a multilevel runtime monitoring approach for safety and security critical CPSs where there are monitors at each level of processing and integration. Given that computation and data processing vulnerabilities may exist at multiple levels in an embedded CPS, it follows that solutions present at the levels where the faults or vulnerabilities originate are beneficial in timely detection of anomalies.
Further, increasing functional and architectural complexity of critical CPSs have significant safety and security operational implications. These challenges are leading to a need for new methods where there is a continuum between design time assurance and runtime or operational assurance. Towards this end, this dissertation explores Model Based Engineering methods by which design assurance can be carried forward to the runtime domain, creating a shared responsibility for reducing the overall risk associated with the system at operation. Therefore, a synergistic combination of Verification & Validation at design time and runtime monitoring at multiple levels is beneficial in assuring safety and security of critical CPS. Furthermore, we realize our multilevel runtime monitor framework on hardware using a stream-based runtime verification language
A Hierarchical Architectural Framework for Securing Unmanned Aerial Systems
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are becoming more widely used in the new era of evolving technology; increasing performance while decreasing size, weight, and cost. A UAS equipped with a Flight Control System (FCS) that can be used to fly semi- or fully-autonomous is a prime example of a Cyber Physical and Safety Critical system. Current Cyber-Physical defenses against malicious attacks are structured around security standards for best practices involving the development of protocols and the digital software implementation. Thus far, few attempts have been made to embed security into the architecture of the system considering security as a holistic problem. Therefore, a Hierarchical, Embedded, Cyber Attack Detection (HECAD) framework is developed to provide security in a holistic manor, providing resiliency against cyber-attacks as well as introducing strategies for mitigating and dealing with component failures. Traversing the hardware/software barrier, HECAD provides detection of malicious faults at the hardware and software level; verified through the development of an FPGA implementation and tested using a UAS FCS
Automated Dynamic Firmware Analysis at Scale: A Case Study on Embedded Web Interfaces
Embedded devices are becoming more widespread, interconnected, and
web-enabled than ever. However, recent studies showed that these devices are
far from being secure. Moreover, many embedded systems rely on web interfaces
for user interaction or administration. Unfortunately, web security is known to
be difficult, and therefore the web interfaces of embedded systems represent a
considerable attack surface.
In this paper, we present the first fully automated framework that applies
dynamic firmware analysis techniques to achieve, in a scalable manner,
automated vulnerability discovery within embedded firmware images. We apply our
framework to study the security of embedded web interfaces running in
Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) embedded devices, such as routers, DSL/cable
modems, VoIP phones, IP/CCTV cameras. We introduce a methodology and implement
a scalable framework for discovery of vulnerabilities in embedded web
interfaces regardless of the vendor, device, or architecture. To achieve this
goal, our framework performs full system emulation to achieve the execution of
firmware images in a software-only environment, i.e., without involving any
physical embedded devices. Then, we analyze the web interfaces within the
firmware using both static and dynamic tools. We also present some interesting
case-studies, and discuss the main challenges associated with the dynamic
analysis of firmware images and their web interfaces and network services. The
observations we make in this paper shed light on an important aspect of
embedded devices which was not previously studied at a large scale.
We validate our framework by testing it on 1925 firmware images from 54
different vendors. We discover important vulnerabilities in 185 firmware
images, affecting nearly a quarter of vendors in our dataset. These
experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach
Securing Real-Time Internet-of-Things
Modern embedded and cyber-physical systems are ubiquitous. A large number of
critical cyber-physical systems have real-time requirements (e.g., avionics,
automobiles, power grids, manufacturing systems, industrial control systems,
etc.). Recent developments and new functionality requires real-time embedded
devices to be connected to the Internet. This gives rise to the real-time
Internet-of-things (RT-IoT) that promises a better user experience through
stronger connectivity and efficient use of next-generation embedded devices.
However RT- IoT are also increasingly becoming targets for cyber-attacks which
is exacerbated by this increased connectivity. This paper gives an introduction
to RT-IoT systems, an outlook of current approaches and possible research
challenges towards secure RT- IoT frameworks
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