Global Attack and Remedy on IC-Specific Logic Encryption

Abstract

In recent years, semiconductor industry has out-sourced the manufacturing to low-cost but not necessarily trusted foundries. This fabless business model encounters new security challenges, including piracy and overproduction. A well-studied solution to prevent unauthorized products from functioning is logic encryption, where a chip is encrypted using a key only known to the designer. However, the majority of the logic encryption solutions are vulnerable due to key uniformity and probing attacks. In this paper, we first present GSAT, a Global attack on existing IC-specific logic encryption schemes using the SAT model, that effectively deciphers the hidden global key pluggable to all the encrypted ICs. Next, we propose a highly secure and low-cost remedy called SPLEnD: Strong PUF -based Logic Encryption Design. Traditional I C-specific encryption schemes are vulnerable to GSAT attack, while SPLEnD not only effectively resists GSAT, but also balances security and efficiency.