FPGA-SoC Security

Contact:
Mathieu Gross

 

FPGA-SoCs are heterogeneous systems consisting of an FPGA and several processing elements.
Securing these platforms consists therefore in combining known techniques from hardware and software security and consdering possible attacks from one system on the other.

In our research, we investigate attacks as well as prevention techniques for modern FPGA-SoC architectures.

Research Topics:

• Memory manipulation attacks from FPGA to CPU.
• Improvement of Trusted Execution Environment security by taking advantage of hardware features contained inside the FPGA.
• Remote side-channel and fault-attacks via circuits that can be implemented within the FPGA fabric.

Selected Publications:

• Mathieu Gross, Konrad Hohentanner, Stefan Wiehler and Georg Sigl: Enhancing the security of FPGA-SoCs via the usage of ARM TrustZone and a Hybrid-TPM, ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (November 2021)
• Mathieu Gross, Nisha Jacob, Andreas Zankl and Georg Sigl: Breaking TrustZone memory isolation and secure boot through malicious hardware on a modern FPGA-SoC, Journal of Cryptographic Engineering, September 2021
• Johanna Sepulveda, Mathieu Gross, Andreas Zankl and Georg Sigl: Beyond Cache Attacks: Exploiting the Bus-based Communication Structure for Powerful On-Chip Microarchitectural Attacks, ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, March 2021