A Unified Submodular Framework for Multimodal IC Trojan Detection

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents a unified formal framework for integrated circuits (IC) Trojan detection that can simultaneously employ multiple noninvasive measurement types. Hardware Trojans refer to modifications, alterations, or insertions to the original IC for adversarial purposes. The new framework formally defines the IC Trojan detection for each measurement type as an optimization problem and discusses the complexity. A formulation of the problem that is applicable to a large class of Trojan detection problems and is submodular is devised. Based on the objective function properties, an efficient Trojan detection method with strong approximation and optimality guarantees is introduced. Signal processing methods for calibrating the impact of inter-chip and intra-chip correlations are presented. We propose a number of methods for combining the detections of the different measurement types. Experimental evaluations on benchmark designs reveal the low-overhead and effectiveness of the new Trojan detection framework and provides a comparison of different detection combining methods.

Hardware Trojan horse benchmark via optimal creation and placement of malicious circuitry

“…Among them, side-channel based HT detection based on power and delay monitoring has become the most focused area [2,3,10,11,12,21]. However, until now, there are no standard and publicly accepted test benchmarks for evaluating the various side-channel-based HT detection solutions, making it difficult for IC design companies or researchers to select the most effective HT detection solutions or to compare them.…”

A Unified Framework for Multimodal Submodular Integrated Circuits Trojan Detection

“…Similar methods can be applied to linearly relate the overall measured quiescent and transient current modalities to gatelevel values. For the sake of brevity, we refer the readers to earlier literature [10], [20].…”

“…An earlier version of this work appeared in [20]. The new aspects of this paper include sensitivity analysis and cumulative unimodal profiling.…”

What is hardware security?

“…For example, it has been shown that the Trojan detection objective function can be written in a submodular way, such that for a certain given set of Trojan test vectors, no algorithm can found a better solution within 63% of the optimal detection [6]. Any Trojan outside this bound would stay undetected by the detections that use the set of given test vectors.…”

“…A novel suit of security and trust solutions based on process variation, design variability, and unique integrated circuits signatures is emerging [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The new methods are elegant yet practical, while they also provide low power and low cost security solutions.…”