Early SoC security validation by VP-based static information flow analysis

Abstract

Security is one of the most burning issues in embedded system design nowadays. The majority of strategies to secure embedded systems are being implemented in software. However, a potential hardware backdoor that allows unprivileged software access to confidential data will render even the perfectly secure software useless. As the underlying SoC cannot be patched after deployment, it is very critical to detect and correct SoC hardware security issues in the design phase. To prevent costly fixes in later stages, security validation should start as early as possible. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to SoC security validation at the system level using Virtual Prototypes (VP). At the heart of the approach is a scalable static information flow analysis that can detect potential security breaches such as data leakage and untrusted access; confidentiality and integrity issues, respectively. We demonstrate the applicability of the approach on real-world VPs.