A Survey on Machine Learning Against Hardware Trojan Attacks: Recent Advances and Challenges

Abstract

The remarkable success of machine learning (ML) in a variety of research domains has inspired academic and industrial communities to explore its potential to address hardware Trojan (HT) attacks. While numerous works have been published over the past decade, few survey papers, to the best of our knowledge, have systematically reviewed the achievements and analyzed the remaining challenges in this area. To fill this gap, this article surveys ML-based approaches against HT attacks available in the literature. In particular, we first provide a classification of all possible HT attacks and then review recent developments from four perspectives, i.e., HT detection, design-for-security (DFS), bus security, and secure architecture. Based on the review, we further discuss the lessons learned in and challenges arising from previous studies. Despite current work focusing more on chip-layer HT problems, it is notable that novel HT threats are constantly emerging and have evolved beyond chips and to the component, device, and even behavior layers, therein compromising the security and trustworthiness of the overall hardware ecosystem. Therefore, we divide the HT threats into four layers and propose a hardware Trojan defense (HTD) reference model from the perspective of the overall hardware ecosystem, therein categorizing the security threats and requirements in each layer to provide a guideline for future research in this direction.

Static Analysis of Malware in Android-based Platforms: A Progress Study

“…Trojans (also called Trojan horse) are the dominant type of malware that imitate the behavior of normal programs and real applications to do a specific function, but in fact, do another. This is to trick users into downloading and installing them, so they can hijack users' credentials (e.g., at the time of login to the system), and run harmful tasks such as formatting hard disk, deleting files, or running applications that can defeats system security or authentication procedures [23]. The main target of Trojans is to have full control of the infected system remotely, so they can damage system resources including files and data stored in the HDD, and sometimes they can deny access to essential system services [24].…”

A Survey on the Security of Wired, Wireless, and 3D Network-on-Chips

“…Attackers try to undermine these three security aspects and SoC designers are required to obtain and keep the security goals to safeguard the system. While NoC security has been surveyed briefly in some previous works [16]- [19], to the best of our knowledge, there is no solid work that surveys the recent security solutions for various NoC technologies. This paper covers both the different attack models and the proposed countermeasures for wired, wireless, and 3D NoCs.…”

Hardware Trojans in Chips: A Survey for Detection and Prevention

“…The previous literature has some HTs reviews, which has some limitations when compared with this article. Huang et al [ 46 ] discussed in detail many HT detection and prevention techniques that are based on machine learning (ML). However, the credibility model is a bit outdated, and the testing stage is not revised to a semi-trusted state.…”