A Scalable Framework for Hardware Security Verification

A Scalable Framework for Hardware Security Verification

Abstract:

The state of the art for hardware security verification relies heavily on manual inspection, code review, and functional verification techniques to identify security vulnerabilities. This labor-intensive process doesn't scale, greatly lowers productivity, and offers no assurance that a security flaw will be found. Maintaining the status quo leaves hardware vulnerable to attacks exploiting hardware, firmware, and software weaknesses.

This presentation describes a framework for scalable hardware security verification. The methods focus on information flow tracking and include techniques such as static analysis, simulation/emulation, and formal verification. The presentation discusses the challenges in hardware security verification, including developing and refining properties, creating security metrics, understanding vulnerabilities, debugging potential security flaws, and scaling to industry designs. The talk highlights our security verification efforts on the Caliptra and OpenTitan hardware roots of trust.

Ryan Kastner is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego, where he holds the William Nachbar endowed chair. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science (2002) at UCLA, a Master’s degree in engineering (2000), and Bachelor’s degrees (BS) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering (1999) from Northwestern University. 

Professor Kastner leads the Kastner Research Group, whose current research interests are broad but generally fall into three areas: hardware acceleration, hardware security, and remote sensing. He is the co-director of the Wireless Embedded Systems Graduate Program – a specialized Master’s degree targeting individuals working in local industries. He co-founded and co-directs the Engineers for Exploration (E4E) program, which partners with archaeologists, biologists, ecologists, and marine scientists to create unique embedded computing systems to further their scientific research.  Technologies developed by E4E were featured in the 2020 National Geographic Docuseries “Ancient China from Above.” E4E has involved hundreds of undergraduates over the past decade and has operated as a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduate site since 2013. Prof. Kastner has been working in the hardware security space for over 15 years, including projects on FPGA security, 3D integrated circuit security, and hardware information flow tracking. He is the co-founder of Cycuity, which develops hardware security verification solutions. He is an IEEE Fellow “for contributions to the design and security of reconfigurable systems.”