An Extensible Evaluation Platform for FPGA Bitstream Obfuscation Security
Shakil Mahmud, Brooks Olney, Robert Karam · 2021
FPGAs are programmable logic devices that provide reconfigurable hardware resources for diverse application areas. Configuration data for the FPGA is entirely encapsulated by the bitstream; thus, protecting intellectual property (IP) stored in the bitstream is a serious concern. Bitstream obfuscation has been proposed to supplement encryption used for protecting IP encoded in the bitstream; however, the potential for side-channel information leakage due to the obfuscation has received less attention. In this paper, we introduce an FPGA-based EM-SCA framework designed to streamline the process of quantifying relative information leakage due to the application of different key-based obfuscation techniques. We describe the system architecture and the automated toolflow, and demonstrate its usage with a case study.