Hardware Security – Introduction and Engineering Perspective

Computer-based platforms are implemented with an ensemble of electronic devices and systems. All of which carry and process sensitive, intimate information, and naturally the need arises to secure the information they process. In theory, we know how to protect digital information: patterns of secret-keeping systems (or any other cryptographic need) always rely on some grain of secretly-kept information, such as a secret key and a limited set of adversarial assumptions.

The problem is that our systems are not theoretical: the very realization of the system in the physical world (hardware and software) leads to secret data leakage through physical mediums, whether it is or isn’t being used – and that’s just one of many problems which are associated with hardware-security.

In this talk, considering the wide audience invited, I will first discuss, in a high-enough abstraction, what is hardware-security and relate it to concrete challenges we aim to solve within the Faculty of Engineering. Namely, real-world cost factors (energy, data bandwidth and latency). Keeping a focused discussion, I will explain what are the factors which makes hardware-security not-practical nowadays for commodity-devices (e.g. off-the-shelf Health, Agriculture, Automotive IoTs, Cellular and Network devices). I will move on, in the second part of the talk, to discuss the essence of the advances we were working on to eliminate these barriers, while not delving too much into technical or mathematical details. The main purpose of the talk would therefore be to expose the audience to the field, to arouse curiosity and discuss on high-level advancements within the state-of-the-art.