Fundamentals on HLS-based hardware Trojan

Abstract

The chapter describes the fundamentals of high-level synthesis (HLS)-based hardware Trojan and its various types. This chapter provides an overview of hardware Trojan and discusses the motivation for an adversary to perform an HLS-based hardware Trojan attack. Further, it highlights the potential sites for hardware Trojan insertion in the semiconductor design supply chain. It discusses in detail the three different types of HLS-based hardware Trojan attacks followed by hardware Trojan in 3PIP modules. The organization of the chapter is as follows: Section 10.1 discusses a brief overview of hardware Trojan, different ways of the hardware Trojan insertion followed by the Trojan insertion during HLS and its potential effects

Section 10.2 provides an overview of three different types of HLS-based hardware Trojan attacks, viz. battery exhaustion, degradation, and downgrade, and discusses the threat scenario. Section 10.3 presents insights on battery exhaustion attacks with a motivational example. Section 10.4 presents insights on degradation attacks with a motivational example while discussing its impact on security and overhead. Section 10.4 presents insights on downgrade attack and explains with the help of compromising secure hash algorithm

Section 10.5 presents insights on hardware Trojan in 3PIP modules and explains using an example

Section 10.6 concludes the chapter. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology and its licensors 2024.