Security Analysis of Hardware Trojans on Approximate Circuits

IEEE Trans. Emerg. Topics Comput.

et al. 2023

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Approximation-aware testing has been recently proposed because conventional methods cannot take into account the flexibility encountered in approximate circuits for handling errors. However, the security vulnerabilities of approximation-aware testing techniques have not been fully considered. Approximate circuits utilize several schemes with a variety of error patterns, that open new opportunities for attackers. In this paper, the security threats in approximation-aware testing methods are investigated. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the topic on the security analysis of approximation-aware testing techniques has not been treated in the technical literature. Two malicious tampering attacks are proposed in addition to an attack that can invalidate hardware Trojan detection. The proposed two tampering attacks, namely tampering of the exact netlist (TEN) and tampering of the error metric (TEM), are evaluated with experiments. The results show that original non-acceptable faults can be mistakenly assigned as acceptable faults and that approximation-aware testing techniques can invalidate the detection of hardware Trojans in approximate circuits due to fault classification.

Section: Security Vulnerabilities In Approximate Circuitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Security and Approximation: Vulnerabilities in Approximation-Aware Testing

IEEE Trans. Emerg. Topics Comput.

et al. 2023

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“…Several potential threat models and countermeasures for approximate circuits have also been investigated [10]. [11] shows that approximate adder circuits may be more vulnerable to hardware Trojans than exact adder circuits. Currently, research on the investigation of the security of approximate circuits mostly focused on the circuit design and lacks security studies that consider an approximate circuit as a third-party IP.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Method Against Hardware Trojans in Approximate Circuits

2023 24th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED)

et al. 2023

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Approximate computing is a promising computing paradigm that trades off power consumption and performance for error-tolerant applications. Approximate computing has been widely studied, such as for arithmetic circuits and accelerators. However, recent research has shown security vulnerabilities in approximate circuits. Hardware Trojans are one of the major threats to hardware circuits and have not been fully studied for approximate computing. Majority voting (MV) based on vendor diversities has been proposed as an effective technique to mask and/or detect hardware Trojans when assembling trusted chips with untrustworthy components. However, the randomness and diversity of inherent errors in approximate circuits can invalidate the MV technique. In this paper, for the first time, the authors present the challenges to approximate circuits when multiple vendors are considered to provide IPs for approximate circuits (IPac). Experiments demonstrate that the MV strategy is not applicable when trusted chips are assembled with IPacs. A comparison-based technique is proposed to thwart hardware Trojan attacks on approximate circuits. The experimental results show a high effectiveness of the proposed method to detect hardware Trojans in approximate circuits.

“…Dou et al. [6] pointed out that approximate adder circuits may be vulnerable to hardware Trojans than exact adder circuits. However, it lacks detailed analysis of the hardware Trojan inserted in the approximate circuit.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and analysis of hardware Trojans in approximate circuits

et al. 2021

Electronics Letters

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Approximate computing can accept errors in computation systems to achieve better utilisation of hardware resources. Approximate computing has been successfully developed in integrated circuits, such as approximate arithemtic circuits and approximate accelerators. Unfortunately, recent works show that approximate circuits also have security vulnerabilities. Hardware Trojan is one of the biggest threats to hardware security. However, very limited research has been conducted on hardware Trojans in approximate circuits. In this letter, two types of hardware Trojans, namely Function‐destructive Trojans and Information‐leaking Trojans, are presented. The Trojans are designed based on the characteristics of approximate circuits. The effectiveness of the hardware Trojans are analysed using the evaluation metrics for approximate circuits.