CS60004 : Hardware Security

CS60004
Course name	Hardware Security
Offered by	Computer Science & Engineering
Credits	3
L-T-P	3-0-0
Professor(s)	Sarani Bhattacharya
Previous Year Grade Distribution
7 8 14 8 3 EX A B C D P F
Semester	Spring

Syllabus

Syllabus mentioned in ERP

Overview of Different Issues of Hardware Security

Preliminaries: Algebra of Finite Fields, Basics of the Mathematical Theory of Public Key Cryptography, Basics of Digital Design on Field-programmable Gate Array (FPGA), Classification using Support Vector Machines (SVMs)

Useful Hardware Security Primitives: Cryptographic Hardware and their Implementation, Optimization of Cryptographic Hardware on FPGA, Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs), PUF Implementations, PUF Quality Evaluation, Design Techniques to Increase PUF Response Quality

Side-channel Attacks on Cryptographic Hardware: Basic Idea, Current-measurement based Side-channel Attacks (Case Study: Kocher's Attack on DES), Design Techniques to Prevent Side-channel Attacks, Improved Side-channel Attack Algorithms (Template Attack, etc.), Cache Attacks

Testability and Verification of Cryptographic Hardware: Fault-tolerance of Cryptographic Hardware, Fault Attacks, Verification of Finite-field Arithmetic Circuits

Modern IC Design and Manufacturing Practices and Their Implications: Hardware Intellectual Property (IP) Piracy and IC Piracy, Design Techniques to Prevent IP and IC Piracy, Using PUFs to prevent Hardware Piracy, Model Building Attacks on PUFs (Case Study: SVM Modeling of Arbiter PUFs, Genetic Programming based Modeling of Ring Oscillator PUF)

Hardware Trojans: Hardware Trojan Nomenclature and Operating Modes, Countermeasures Such as Design and Manufacturing Techniques to Prevent/Detect Hardware Trojans, Logic Testing and Side-channel Analysis based Techniques for Trojan Detection, Techniques to Increase Testing Sensitivity Infrastructure Security: Impact of Hardware Security Compromise on Public Infrastructure, Defense Techniques (Case Study: Smart-Grid Security)

Note: The actual curriculum may vary depending on the professor teaching the course.

Concepts taught in class

Student Opinion

Attending the classes regularly will surely help. A great NPTEL playlist is available that covers most of the major topics.

Spring 2023

Taught by Prof. Sarani Bhattacharya. This is a 3-credit course with no lab component. However, some additional classes were organised to give a hands-on experience. A smaller number of students are enrolled in the course majorly PG and RS with a few UG students. The grading is based on mid-semester, and end-semester examinations, along with 1 assignment (pre-midsem) and a term project (post-endsem). The exams are relatively easy to score with great focus on the fundamental concepts.

Additional Resources

Debdeep Mukhopadhyay and Rajat Subhra Chakraborty, "Hardware Security: Design, Threats, and Safeguards", CRC Press