Custom hardware attack

Last updated
The EFF's "Deep Crack" machine contained 1,856 custom chips and could brute force a DES key in a matter of days -- the photo shows a circuit board fitted with 32 custom attack chips Board300.jpg
The EFF's "Deep Crack" machine contained 1,856 custom chips and could brute force a DES key in a matter of days — the photo shows a circuit board fitted with 32 custom attack chips

In cryptography, a custom hardware attack uses specifically designed application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) to decipher encrypted messages.

Contents

Mounting a cryptographic brute force attack requires a large number of similar computations: typically trying one key, checking if the resulting decryption gives a meaningful answer, and then trying the next key if it does not. Computers can perform these calculations at a rate of millions per second, and thousands of computers can be harnessed together in a distributed computing network. But the number of computations required on average grows exponentially with the size of the key, and for many problems standard computers are not fast enough. On the other hand, many cryptographic algorithms lend themselves to fast implementation in hardware, i.e. networks of logic circuits, also known as gates. Integrated circuits (ICs) are constructed of these gates and often can execute cryptographic algorithms hundreds of times faster than a general purpose computer. [1]

Each IC can contain large numbers of gates (hundreds of millions in 2005). Thus, the same decryption circuit, or cell, can be replicated thousands of times on one IC. The communications requirements for these ICs are very simple. Each must be initially loaded with a starting point in the key space and, in some situations, with a comparison test value (see known plaintext attack). Output consists of a signal that the IC has found an answer and the successful key.

Since ICs lend themselves to mass production, thousands or even millions of ICs can be applied to a single problem. The ICs themselves can be mounted in printed circuit boards. A standard board design can be used for different problems since the communication requirements for the chips are the same. Wafer-scale integration is another possibility. The primary limitations on this method are the cost of chip design, IC fabrication, floor space, electric power and thermal dissipation. [2]

History

The earliest custom hardware attack may have been the Bombe used to recover Enigma machine keys in World War II. In 1998, a custom hardware attack was mounted against the Data Encryption Standard cipher by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Their "Deep Crack" machine cost U.S. $250,000 to build and decrypted the DES Challenge II-2 test message after 56 hours of work. The only other confirmed DES cracker was the COPACOBANA machine (Cost-Optimized PArallel COde Breaker) built in 2006. Unlike Deep Crack, COPACOBANA consists of commercially available FPGAs (reconfigurable logic gates). COPACOBANA costs about $10,000 [3] to build and will recover a DES key in under 6.4 days on average. The cost decrease by roughly a factor of 25 over the EFF machine is an impressive example of the continuous improvement of digital hardware. Adjusting for inflation over 8 years yields an even higher improvement of about 30x. Since 2007, SciEngines GmbH, a spin-off company of the two project partners of COPACOBANA has enhanced and developed successors of COPACOBANA. In 2008, their COPACOBANA RIVYERA reduced the time to break DES to the current record of less than one day, using 128 Spartan-3 5000's. [4] It is generally believed[ citation needed ] that large government code breaking organizations, such as the U.S. National Security Agency, make extensive use of custom hardware attacks, but no examples have been declassified or leaked as of 2005.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central processing unit</span> Central computer component which executes instructions

A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the most important processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output (I/O) operations. This role contrasts with that of external components, such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized coprocessors such as graphics processing units (GPUs).

Processor design is a subfield of computer science and computer engineering (fabrication) that deals with creating a processor, a key component of computer hardware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Data Encryption Standard</span> Early unclassified symmetric-key block cipher

The Data Encryption Standard is a symmetric-key algorithm for the encryption of digital data. Although its short key length of 56 bits makes it too insecure for modern applications, it has been highly influential in the advancement of cryptography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Integrated circuit</span> Electronic circuit formed on a small, flat piece of semiconductor material

An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip, computer chip, or simply chip, is a small electronic device made up of multiple interconnected electronic components such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors. These components are etched onto a small piece of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Integrated circuits are used in a wide range of electronic devices, including computers, smartphones, and televisions, to perform various functions such as processing and storing information. They have greatly impacted the field of electronics by enabling device miniaturization and enhanced functionality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola 6800</span> 8-bit microprocessor

The 6800 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips. A significant design feature was that the M6800 family of ICs required only a single five-volt power supply at a time when most other microprocessors required three voltages. The M6800 Microcomputer System was announced in March 1974 and was in full production by the end of that year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Very-large-scale integration</span> Creating an integrated circuit by combining many transistors into a single chip

Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit chips were developed and then widely adopted, enabling complex semiconductor and telecommunication technologies. The microprocessor and memory chips are VLSI devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital electronics</span> Electronic circuits that utilize digital signals

Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics which work primarily with analog signals. Despite the name, digital electronics designs includes important analog design considerations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intel 4004</span> 4-bit microprocessor

The Intel 4004 is a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. Sold for US$60, it was the first commercially produced microprocessor, and the first in a long line of Intel CPUs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Application-specific integrated circuit</span> Integrated circuit customized for a specific task

An application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficiency video codec. Application-specific standard product chips are intermediate between ASICs and industry standard integrated circuits like the 7400 series or the 4000 series. ASIC chips are typically fabricated using metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology, as MOS integrated circuit chips.

Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together in a design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Since a modern semiconductor chip can have billions of components, EDA tools are essential for their design; this article in particular describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits (ICs).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gate array</span> Type of integrated circuit

A gate array is an approach to the design and manufacture of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) using a prefabricated chip with components that are later interconnected into logic devices according to custom order by adding metal interconnect layers in the factory. It was popular during the upheaval in the semiconductor industry in the 1980s, and its usage declined by the end of the 1990s.

Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclusively, located in the United States, China, and Taiwan. Fabless companies can benefit from lower capital costs while concentrating their research and development resources on the end market. Some fabless companies and pure play foundries may offer integrated-circuit design services to third parties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EFF DES cracker</span> Cryptographic hardware

In cryptography, the EFF DES cracker is a machine built by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in 1998, to perform a brute force search of the Data Encryption Standard (DES) cipher's key space – that is, to decrypt an encrypted message by trying every possible key. The aim in doing this was to prove that the key size of DES was not sufficient to be secure.

VLSI Technology, Inc., was an American company that designed and manufactured custom and semi-custom integrated circuits (ICs). The company was based in Silicon Valley, with headquarters at 1109 McKay Drive in San Jose. Along with LSI Logic, VLSI Technology defined the leading edge of the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) business, which accelerated the push of powerful embedded systems into affordable products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Integrated circuit design</span> Engineering process for electronic hardware

Integrated circuit design, semiconductor design, chip design or IC design, is a sub-field of electronics engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist of miniaturized electronic components built into an electrical network on a monolithic semiconductor substrate by photolithography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Physical design (electronics)</span>

In integrated circuit design, physical design is a step in the standard design cycle which follows after the circuit design. At this step, circuit representations of the components of the design are converted into geometric representations of shapes which, when manufactured in the corresponding layers of materials, will ensure the required functioning of the components. This geometric representation is called integrated circuit layout. This step is usually split into several sub-steps, which include both design and verification and validation of the layout.

A three-dimensional integrated circuit is a MOS integrated circuit (IC) manufactured by stacking as many as 16 or more ICs and interconnecting them vertically using, for instance, through-silicon vias (TSVs) or Cu-Cu connections, so that they behave as a single device to achieve performance improvements at reduced power and smaller footprint than conventional two dimensional processes. The 3D IC is one of several 3D integration schemes that exploit the z-direction to achieve electrical performance benefits in microelectronics and nanoelectronics.

This page is a comparison of electronic design automation (EDA) software which is used today to design the near totality of electronic devices. Modern electronic devices are too complex to be designed without the help of a computer. Electronic devices may consist of integrated circuits (ICs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or a combination of them. Integrated circuits may consist of a combination of digital and analog circuits. These circuits can contain a combination of transistors, resistors, capacitors or specialized components such as analog neural networks, antennas or fuses.

A Hardware Trojan (HT) is a malicious modification of the circuitry of an integrated circuit. A hardware Trojan is completely characterized by its physical representation and its behavior. The payload of an HT is the entire activity that the Trojan executes when it is triggered. In general, Trojans try to bypass or disable the security fence of a system: for example, leaking confidential information by radio emission. HTs also could disable, damage or destroy the entire chip or components of it.

Hardware obfuscation is a technique by which the description or the structure of electronic hardware is modified to intentionally conceal its functionality, which makes it significantly more difficult to reverse-engineer. In other words, hardware obfuscation modifies the design in such a away that the resulting architecture becomes un-obvious to an adversary. Hardware Obfuscation can be of two types depending on the hardware platform targeted: (a) DSP Core Hardware Obfuscation - this type of obfuscation performs certain high level transformation on the data flow graph representation of DSP core to convert it into an unknown form that reflects an un-obvious architecture at RTL or gate level. This type of obfuscation is also called 'Structural Obfuscation'. Another type of DSP Core Obfuscation method is called 'Functional Obfuscation' - It uses a combination of AES and IP core locking blocks (ILBs) to lock the functionality of the DSP core using key-bits. Without application of correct key sequence, the DSP core produces either wrong output or no output at all (b) Combinational/Sequential Hardware Obfuscation - this type of obfuscation performs changes to the gate level structure of the circuit itself.

References

  1. ↑ Jindal, Poonam; Abou Houran, Mohamad; Goyal, Deepam; Choudhary, Anurag (2023-06-01). "A review of different techniques used to design photonic crystal-based logic gates". Optik. 280: 170794. Bibcode:2023Optik.280q0794J. doi:10.1016/j.ijleo.2023.170794. ISSN   0030-4026. S2CID   257725561.
  2. ↑ Navaraj, William Taube; Gupta, Shoubhik; Lorenzelli, Leandro; Dahiya, Ravinder (April 2018). "Wafer Scale Transfer of Ultrathin Silicon Chips on Flexible Substrates for High Performance Bendable Systems". Advanced Electronic Materials. 4 (4): 1700277. doi: 10.1002/aelm.201700277 . S2CID   85547788.
  3. ↑ Gerd Pfeiffer; Christof Paar; Jan Pelzl; Sandeep Kumar; Andy Rupp; Manfred Schimmler. How to Break DES for EUR 8,980 (PDF). SHARCS 2006.
  4. ↑ Break DES in less than a single day Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine [Press release of firm, demonstrated at a 2009 workshop]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.