The study by Fraunhofer AISEC on the security of cryptographic hardware implementations focuses on physical attacks on hardware, such as side-channel attacks and fault attacks, as well as measures to defend against them. These protective mechanisms can potentially be compromised by optimizations in the chip design process. The study shows that protective measures should be integrated into complex design processes and taken into account in hardware design synthesis in order to be resilient to hardware attacks. The findings will help hardware designers to develop robust and secure chips.
To ensure the security of embedded systems, the integrity and authenticity of the software must be verified, for example through signatures. However, targeted hardware attacks enable malware to be used to take over the system. What risks are modern cryptographic implementations exposed to? What countermeasures need to be taken? To answer these questions, Fraunhofer AISEC was commissioned by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) to carry out a study of laser-based fault attacks on XMSS. The focus is on a hash-based, quantum-secure scheme for creating and verifying signatures based on the Winternitz One-Time-Signature (WOTS) scheme.
Despite taking every precaution, IT-based systems and products are rarely completely free of security vulnerabilities. In order to detect and fix vulnerabilities and attack areas early on, software and hard-ware must endure rigorous security testing. However, cybersecurity researchers who report vulnerabili-ties responsibly and in the interest of common good (so-called “white hat hackers”) are currently at risk of criminal prosecution. The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC has responded by developing an internal procedure based on best-practice processes for dealing with vul-nerabilities discovered by its researchers. Fraunhofer AISEC has also collaborated with the Sec4Research interdisciplinary research team to produce a white paper suggesting ways to improve the legal situation of “white hat hackers” from within the research community.
