Course description

Cyber security is now a critical concern in a wide range of embedded computing, communications systems, and connected devices. Hardware-based security techniques can help prevent a range of attacks more effectively and with better system performance than software-only approaches. This course introduces hardware approaches to cyber-security.

Hardware security sits at the intersection of hardware design and cryptographic engineering. This course provides in-depth introduction to the role that hardware security plays in cybersecurity and computer hardware related attacks and defense in computing systems.

Topics covered are computing systems security requirements: integrity and authentication, among others; core security techniques: encryption algorithms, key distribution and management; hardware attacks: hardware Trojans, side-channel attacks, fault attacks, hardware counterfeiting; trusted hardware primitives: trusted digital system design, circuit obfuscation, trust platform modules, physical unclonable functions, true random number generators; and secure embedded and mobile devices.

Objectives

The course enhances students' preparation to identify, understand and potential propose hardware-solution solutions for the most pressing cyber security problems.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Distinguish between software and hardware security;
• Identify the sources and manifestations of hardware-centric cyber-threats;
• Categorize hardware security solutions;
• Evaluate computing system in terms of performance, reliability, and security;
• Effectively assess new hardware security approaches.

Textbook

No Required Book

Reference books

• M. Tehranipoor and C. Wang, Introduction to Hardware Security and Trust, Springer, 2011
• R. J. Anderson Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems, 2nd Edition

Term Office Hours

• Prof. Kinsy: Monday 1:00pm - 2:00pm, Wednesday 1:00pm - 2:00pm, and by appointment.

Enrollment Requirements

The course prerequisites are Computer Organization and Assembly Language Programming (CSE 230) and/or Computer Architecture I (CSE 420) and/or computer Architecture II (CSE 520)