Abstract
This article presents the state-of-the-art of the physical security of smart devices.
Electronic devices are getting ubiquitous and autonomous: their security is thus becoming a predominant feature. Attacks targeting the physical layer are all the more serious as hardware is not naturally protected against them. The attacks typically consist in either tampering with the device so as to make it malfunction or in spying at some information it leaks. Those attacks, either active or passive, belong to the side-channel attack class.
Active attacks operate by writing on an ad hoc side-channel: a degree a freedom normally not available to the end-user is modified by force. Passive attacks consist in listening to a side-channel: the attacker is thus able to gain more information about the device operation than it is supposed to.
Counter-measures against both types of attacks have been proposed and we show that only some of them are relevant. Active attacks are forfeited by an appropriate detection mechanism and passive attacks by the removal of all sorts of information leakage. As a consequence, securing hardware consists in watching side-channels or removing them if possible.
The increase of security is mainly driven by two trends: integration of the system (on a SoC) for improved discretion and development of a dedicated symptom-free electroniccad. SoCs security is thus foreseen to become a discipline in itself.
Résumé
Cet article présente l’état de l’art des connaissances sur la sécurité des systèmes électroniques embarqués.
De plus en plus de puces sont disséminées dans notre environnement pour créer une intelligence ambiante. De par l’ouverture de ces réseaux de puces communiquantes, celles-ci ont besoin d’être sécurisées. Les attaques sur les circuits électroniques sont donc préoccupantes, d’autant plus que les circuits sont naturellement vulnérables. Les attaques consistent typiquement à faire dysfonctionner la puce ou bien à espionner l’information qu’elle laisse fuir. Dans les deux cas, on parle d’attaques exploitant un canal caché.
Les attaques actives écrivent sur un canal caché: l’attaquant modifie de force le circuit. Quant aux attaques passives, elles lisent un canal caché: l’attaquant dispose de cette façon de plus d’information sur le fonctionnement du circuit qu’il n’est censé en avoir.
Parmi les contre-mesures proposées, nous montrons que seules certaines résolvent durablement les failles de sécurité. La parade contre les attaques actives est un mécanisme de détection, et la parade contre les attaques passives est l’élimination de toute fuite d’information. Ainsi, la sécurité du matériel repose sur la surveillance des canaux cachés, ou mieux, sur leur éradication quand cela est possible.
Deux leviers servent à augmenter la sécurité physique des circuits électroniques l’intégration de ces circuits sur un même substrat (SoC) pour confiner le système sensible et l’invention puis le développement de méthodes de conception de circuits dépourvus de canaux cachés. On pressent donc que la sécurité des SoC est en passe de devenir une discipline à part entière.
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Guilley, S., Pacalet, R. SoCs security: a war against side-channels. Ann. Télécommun. 59, 998–1009 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03180031
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03180031