Who’s In Your Wallet?


Hacking a financial institution is a very big deal. Banks and credit card companies take their security very seriously because they literally have money to lose if something goes awry. What becomes clear, though, in reading the criminal complaint involving the Capital One hack, is that the weakest link isn't always the hardware or the software. It's the geeks who want to show off, or ... » read more

New Approaches For Hardware Security


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss a wide range of hardware security issues and possible solutions with Norman Chang, chief technologist for the Semiconductor Business Unit at ANSYS; Helena Handschuh, fellow at Rambus, and Mike Borza, principal security technologist at Synopsys. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. (L-R) Norman Chang, Helena Handschuh, Mike Borza. Pho... » read more

Meltdown, Spectre And Foreshadow


Ben Levine, senior director of product management for Rambus’ Security Division, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about hardware-specific attacks, why they are so dangerous, and how they work. » read more

Can The Hardware Supply Chain Remain Secure?


Malware in computers has been a reality since the 1990s, but lately the focus has shifted to hardware. So far, the semiconductor industry has been lucky because well-publicized threats were either limited or unproven. But sooner or later, luck runs out. Last year saw two significant incidents that shook people’s faith in the integrity of hardware security. The first was the Meltdown/Spectr... » read more

Introduction to Side-Channel Attacks


Side-channel attacks conducted against electronic gear are relatively simple and inexpensive to execute. Such attacks include simple power analysis (SPA) and Differential Power Analysis (DPA). An attacker does not need to know specific implementation details of the cryptographic device to perform these attacks and extract keys. As all physical electronic systems routinely leak information, effe... » read more

Cache Speculation Side-Channels


This whitepaper looks at the susceptibility of Arm implementations following research findings from security researchers, including Google and MIT, on new potential cache timing side-channels exploiting processor speculation. This paper also outlines possible mitigations that can be employed for software designed to run on existing Arm processors. To read more, click here. » read more

System Bits: Aug. 21


Two types of computers create faster, less energy-intensive image processor for autonomous cars, security cameras, medical devices Stanford University researchers reminded that the image recognition technology that underlies today’s autonomous cars and aerial drones depends on artificial intelligence. These are the computers that essentially teach themselves to recognize objects like a dog, ... » read more

Cache Speculation Side-Channels


Cache timing side-channels are a well understood concept in the area of security research. As such, this whitepaper will provide a simple conceptual overview rather than an in-depth explanation. The basic principle behind cache timing side-channels is that the pattern of allocations into the cache, and, in particular, which cache sets have been used for the allocation, can be determined by m... » read more

Evaluating Side-Channel Vulnerabilities


By Bart Stevens and Gary Kenworthy In a book chapter titled “Security of Crypto IP Core: Issues and Countermeasures,” authors Debapriya Basu Roy and Debdeep Mukhopadhyay recently explored various side-channel vulnerabilities that can be exploited by an attacker. “An adversary can observe the power consumption, timing performance, electromagnetic radiation or even acoustic behavior o... » read more

Imperfect Silicon, Near-Perfect Security


Some chipmakers, under pressure to add security to rapidly growing numbers of IoT devices, have rediscovered a "fingerprinting" technique used primarily as an anti-counterfeiting measure. [getkc id="227" kc_name="Physically unclonable functions"] (PUFs) are used to assign a unique identification number based on inconsistencies in the speed with which current causes a series of logic gates to... » read more

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