A Framework for Evaluating Security in the Presence of Signal Injection Attacks

Sensors are embedded in security-critical applications from medical devices to nuclear power plants, but their outputs can be spoofed through electromagnetic and other types of signals transmitted by attackers at a distance. To address the lack of a unifying framework for evaluating the effects of such transmissions, we introduce a system and threat model for signal injection attacks. We further define the concepts of existential, selective, and universal security, which address attacker goals from mere disruptions of the sensor readings to precise waveform injections. Moreover, we introduce an algorithm which allows circuit designers to concretely calculate the security level of real systems. Finally, we apply our definitions and algorithm in practice using measurements of injections against a smartphone microphone, and analyze the demodulation characteristics of commercial Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs). Overall, our work highlights the importance of evaluating the susceptibility of systems against signal injection attacks, and introduces both the terminology and the methodology to do so.Comment: This article is the extended technical report version of the paper presented at ESORICS 2019, 24th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS), Luxembourg, Luxembourg, September 201

Macrostructural Alterations of Subcortical Grey Matter in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction

Psychogenic erectile dysfunction (ED) has been defined as the persistent inability to attain and maintain an erection sufficient to permit sexual performance. It shows a high incidence and prevalence among men, with a significant impact on the quality of life. Few neuroimaging studies have investigated the cerebral basis of erectile dysfunctions observing the role played by prefrontal, cingulate, and parietal cortices during erotic stimulation. In spite of the well-known involvement of subcortical regions such as hypothalamus and caudate nucleus in male sexual response, and the key role of nucleus accumbens in pleasure and reward, poor attention was paid to their role in male sexual dysfunction. In this study, we determined the presence of grey matter (GM) atrophy patterns in subcortical structures such as amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, caudate nucleus, putamen, pallidum, thalamus, and hypothalamus in patients with psychogenic ED and healthy men. After Rigiscan evaluation, urological, general medical, metabolic and hormonal, psychological and psychiatric assessment, 17 outpatients with psychogenic ED and 25 healthy controls were recruited for structural MRI session. Significant GM atrophy of nucleus accumbens was observed bilaterally in patients with respect to controls. Shape analysis showed that this atrophy was located in the left medial-anterior and posterior portion of accumbens. Left nucleus accumbens volumes in patients correlated with low erectile functioning as measured by IIEF-5 (International Index of Erectile Function). In addition, a GM atrophy of left hypothalamus was also observed. Our results suggest that atrophy of nucleus accumbens plays an important role in psychogenic erectile dysfunction. We believe that this change can influence the motivation-related component of sexual behavior. Our findings help to elucidate a neural basis of psychogenic erectile dysfunction

Agreement of Self-Reported and Genital Measures of Sexual Arousal in Men and Women: A Meta-Analysis

The assessment of sexual arousal in men and women informs theoretical studies of human sexuality and provides a method to assess and evaluate the treatment of sexual dysfunctions and paraphilias. Understanding measures of arousal is, therefore, paramount to further theoretical and practical advances in the study of human sexuality. In this meta-analysis, we review research to quantify the extent of agreement between self-reported and genital measures of sexual arousal, to determine if there is a gender difference in this agreement, and to identify theoretical and methodological moderators of subjective-genital agreement. We identified 132 peer- or academically-reviewed laboratory studies published between 1969 and 2007 reporting a correlation between self-reported and genital measures of sexual arousal, with total sample sizes of 2,505 women and 1,918 men. There was a statistically significant gender difference in the agreement between self-reported and genital measures, with men (r = .66) showing a greater degree of agreement than women (r = .26). Two methodological moderators of the gender difference in subjective-genital agreement were identified: stimulus variability and timing of the assessment of self-reported sexual arousal. The results have implications for assessment of sexual arousal, the nature of gender differences in sexual arousal, and models of sexual response

Design of a Neural Recording Amplifier Robust to EMI

This paper deals with power line interference during the recording of biopotential signals. A scheme to improve biopotential signal acquisition as well as a new fully-differential self-biased neural recording amplifier design are presented. The operations of the proposed neural recording amplifier are discussed and evaluated by means of computer simulations

Design of a Neural Recording Amplifier Robust to EMI

This paper deals with power line interference during the recording of biopotential signals. A scheme to improve biopotential signal acquisition as well as a new fully-differential self-biased neural recording amplifier design are presented. The operations of the proposed neural recording amplifier are discussed and evaluated by means of computer simulation

Design of an integrated tunable differential negative resistance in UMC 0.18 μm

This paper presents a CMOS floating tunable differential resistance, which has the property of being positive with respect to common-mode signals while being negative for differential signals. The designed circuit is simulated in UMC 180 nm CMOS process: simulations show that the negative differential resistance can be varied in a broad range, from 23.5 kΩ to 3.8 MΩ

EMI-resistant CMOS differential input stages

This paper studies and compares the performances of CMOS differential input stages with a high degree of immunity against electromagnetic interferences (EMIs) and introduces a source-buffered differential pair which is very resistant to EMI coupled at its inputs. The EMI behavior of this source-buffered differential-pair topology has been evaluated with a test chip: When injecting an EMI signal of 750 mV rms at the input terminals, the measured maximal EMI-induced input offset voltage corresponds to 116 mV for the source-buffered topology compared with 610 mV for the classic differential pair, which constitutes a major improvement. © 2006 IEEE

High-resolution passive phase shifters for adaptive duplexing applications in SOS process

Two high-resolution passive delay line phase shifters in silicon-on-sapphire are compared. Both make use of digitally tuned capacitor loaded π sections to obtain 360° phase control. The first has a nominal resolution of 9-bit and uses ten sections, yielding an insertion loss (IL) of 12.6 dB at 1.4 GHz. The second employs a center tapped auto-transformer to provide 180° of phase shift, reducing both size and the IL while enabling a further 1-bit improvement in resolution. The measured IL in the 1.8-2.4-GHz frequency range is less than 7.3 dB. Stacked field-effect transistors were employed as switches to increase the power-handling capability. An input referred third intercept point (IIP3) of + 39 and + 54 dBm were measured for the first and second circuits, respectively. © 2014 IEEE

Measurements of EMI susceptibility of precision voltage references

peer reviewedThis paper investigates and reports on the susceptibility of commercial voltage references to electromagnetic interference (EMI). Two separate scenarios have been considered. In the first experiment, the interferences are directly injected onto the power supply lines of each voltage reference. In the second measurement, EMI is capacitively coupled to all the pins of the voltage reference under test, including the output, hereby emulating the presence of a neighbouring noisy printed circuit board (PCB) trace. These measurements show that the resulting EMI-induced offset can attain considerable values at critical EMI frequencies, ranging from 30MHz to 100MHz when the EMI is injected into the power supply rails, and 300MHz to 500MHz when EMI is capacitively coupled to all the pins. © 2017 IEEE