Trusting the open latent IC backdoors
Farinaz Koushanfar · 2011
Since the Integrated Circuits (ICs) form the core computing and communication kernels for the personal computing, industries, governments and defense in the modern era, ensuring IC trust -- in the presence of untrusted third-party foundries and unidentified supply chains -- has become a major challenge. The prohibitive cost of manufacturing state-of-the-art ICs in nano-meter scales has made the use of contract foundries and third party Intellectual Property (IP) the dominant microelectronics business practice. The hidden backdoors into the chips are a double-edge sword. On one hand, the clandestine backdoors embedded by the reliable designers or trusted supply chain providers enable tracking or having post-fabrication control of the ICs on the production line and while in-use. On the other hand, the latent backdoors (a.k.a., Trojans) implanted by the untrusted third-party manufacturer or unknown supply chain entities enable the potential external adversaries to control, monitor, or to spy the chip software/data contents and communications.