Security News > 2023 > March > How to combat hardware Trojans by detecting microchip manipulations

Their advanced algorithm can identify discrepancies by comparing chip blueprints with electron microscope images of the actual chips.

The research team has generously made available all chip images, design data, and analysis algorithms online at no cost, enabling fellow researchers to access and utilize these resources for their own investigations and advancements in the field.

"It's conceivable that tiny changes might be inserted into the designs in the factories shortly before production that could override the security of the chips," explains Dr. Steffen Becker and gives an example for the possible consequences: "In extreme cases, such hardware Trojans could allow an attacker to paralyze parts of the telecommunications infrastructure at the push of a button."

They obviously couldn't modify the chips after the fact and build in hardware Trojans.

In the first step, the researchers had to prepare the chips using complex chemical and mechanical methods to take several thousand images of the lowest chip layers with a scanning electron microscope.

The researchers used image processing methods to carefully match standard cell for standard cell and looked for deviations between the construction plans and the microscopic images of the chips.

News URL

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/03/22/hardware-trojans-detecting-microchip-manipulations/