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SARFUM: Security Architecture for Remote FPGA Update and Monitoring

Published: 01 May 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Remote update of hardware platforms or embedded systems is a convenient service enabled by Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based systems. This service is often essential in applications like space-based FPGA systems or set-top boxes. However, having the source of the update be remote from the FPGA system opens the door to a set of attacks that may challenge the confidentiality and integrity of the FPGA configuration, the bitstream. Existing schemes propose to encrypt and authenticate the bitstream to thwart these attacks. However, we show that they do not prevent the replay of old bitstream versions, and thus give adversaries an opportunity for downgrading the system. In this article, we propose a new architecture called sarfum that, in addition to ensuring bitstream confidentiality and integrity, precludes the replay of old bitstreams. sarfum also includes a protocol for the system designer to remotely monitor the running configuration of the FPGA. Following our presentation and analysis of the security protocols, we propose an example of implementation with the CCM (Counter with CBC-MAC) authenticated encryption standard. We also evaluate the impact of our architecture on the configuration time for different FPGA devices.

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  • (2018)Securing bitstream integrity, confidentiality and authenticity in reconfigurable mobile heterogeneous systems2018 IEEE International Conference on Automation, Quality and Testing, Robotics (AQTR)10.1109/AQTR.2018.8402795(1-6)Online publication date: May-2018
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  • (2012)Efficient and side-channel resistant authenticated encryption of FPGA bitstreams2012 International Conference on Reconfigurable Computing and FPGAs10.1109/ReConFig.2012.6416743(1-6)Online publication date: Dec-2012
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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems
ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems  Volume 3, Issue 2
May 2010
141 pages
ISSN:1936-7406
EISSN:1936-7414
DOI:10.1145/1754386
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 01 May 2010
Accepted: 01 March 2009
Revised: 01 November 2008
Received: 01 May 2008
Published in TRETS Volume 3, Issue 2

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Author Tags

  1. FPGA
  2. authenticated encryption
  3. bitstream security
  4. replay attack
  5. security protocol
  6. system downgrade

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Cited By

View all
  • (2018)Securing bitstream integrity, confidentiality and authenticity in reconfigurable mobile heterogeneous systems2018 IEEE International Conference on Automation, Quality and Testing, Robotics (AQTR)10.1109/AQTR.2018.8402795(1-6)Online publication date: May-2018
  • (2017)Remote System Update for System on Programmable Chip Based on Controller Area NetworkElectronics10.3390/electronics60200456:2(45)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2017
  • (2012)Efficient and side-channel resistant authenticated encryption of FPGA bitstreams2012 International Conference on Reconfigurable Computing and FPGAs10.1109/ReConFig.2012.6416743(1-6)Online publication date: Dec-2012
  • (2011)Securing Boot of an Embedded Linux on FPGAProceedings of the 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing Workshops and PhD Forum10.1109/IPDPS.2011.141(189-195)Online publication date: 16-May-2011
  • (2011)Embedded Systems Security for FPGASecurity Trends for FPGAS10.1007/978-94-007-1338-3_6(137-187)Online publication date: 2011

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