A practical proposal for ensuring the provenance of hardware devices and their safe operation

Abstract

This paper presents a novel technique, termed ICmetrics (Integrated Circuit metrics), that can be used for the purposes of generating encryption keys, electronic signatures, detecting attempts of frauds, or preventing malfunction of hardware components and systems. The ICmetrics technology is based on employment of measurable features derived from characteristics of a given electronic device in order to generate an identifier that uniquely determines or describes the device. Any changes in the identifier during consequent device's operation would signal about a possible safety or security breach within the electronic system. After a detailed overview of the ICmetrics technology and comparing it to the alternative techniques commonly used for securing electronic systems, the paper discusses challenges of developing the technology and brings an example to demonstrate how these issues are being addressed.

Program Counter as an Integrated Circuit Metrics for Secured Program Identification

“…Four of the seven programs have been taken from [5]; the automotive package of benchmark algorithms -MiBench. Two are taken from the Open Source Computer Vision Library (OpenCV [8]) and the last taken from [9]. All the seven programs have been implemented on the Keil MCBSTM32F200 evaluation board and their corresponding PC values extracted from the tracing log generated via the JTAG debugger.…”

A Machine Learning Method For Sensor Authentication Using Hidden Markov Models

“…In previous publications, namely [7] and [8], it was explored how viable and if at all possible it was to apply the core technology to generate stable IDs from a processors software execution signature. Here, the main idea was to exploit the program counter (PC) as the data source, given that the PC signature yields distinct PDFs from different programs, in a similar way malware analysis.…”

A Self-Organising Map Based Algorithm for Analysis of ICmetrics Features

“…The PC value was explored as an ICmetrics feature in our previous studies [9] and [10], but only separated PC values were statistically analysed, which are unable to provide enough information about devices' behaviour. Contrary to that, we observe that PC is a good source derived from high level program.…”

“…In the our previous works [9] and [10], we aimed to explore the possibility of applying the ICmetrics technology to generate stable encryption keys based on characteristics derived from embedded systems' operation. The program counter (PC) of a processor core was used as a source for ICmetrics features, where full PC profiles were statistically analysed to find the distinct values from different programs.…”