HARDWARE TROJAN
Hello Readers! Welcome
to the Geek’s Dorm, this month’s “Hardware Touch of the month” post is about
Hardware Trojans. Like a Software Trojan (Virus) it is also malicious and cause
damage to the device. Wonder what hardware Trojan is? Simple, it is nothing but
a malicious connection on an IC (Integrated circuit).
Actually
what does it do?It is similar to a Software Trojan. Trojan try to pass
or destroy the security of the system in which it is used ie., the IC. It may
leak the confidential file through radio emission, also it may disable the
entire chip and its components.
How
can we identify it? It can be identify them by its physical
characteristics, actions and activation phase.
Physical characteristics:
Hardware
Trojans can be identified by its type. Basically Hardware Trojans are of two
types:
·
Parametric
·
Functional
What
do I mean by parametric type? This type of Trojans changes the
components of the circuits either explicitly or implicitly. For an example,
weakening of gates voltage, reducing the reliability through Focusing Ion Beam
etc.,
What do I
mean by Functional type? This type of Trojans deletes the contents of a transistors and gates in
a circuit.
Methods of activation:
Now we
have discussed about the Trojans outfit (physical appearance).Let us know about
how they are activated?
Generally a Trojan is activated using sensors, Logical states (A
circuit may change from one state to others which is called transitions),
Timer count value.
Threats of Trojans:
After
a Brief explanation about their Physical appearance and activation methods, we
are going to learn what they do?Trojans change the way that IC works, it
modifies the parameters related to IC also as I said earlier they can also leak
the confidential keys using the Focused Ion Beams (FIB).
How they are detected?
There
are various detection methods to detect the Trojans during their insertion
(during fabrication) and also during the working condition. The ways are as
follows:
·
Physical inspection
·
Functional Tests
·
Built-in Test (Built in self-test and Design for test using checksum and
Scanning techniques)
·
Side channel analysis
Here it ends, the “Hardware touch of the month”
post.Hope it is helpful please feel free to comment on the error and writing
style of the post I will really try to avoid those errors in the future.
I learned about hardware Trojans when reading
something in Wikipedia so shared with you and as usual thanks! For spending
your leisure time reading my post. Stay tuned for more post till then its bye
from a Geek like you Bye! Happy learning!
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