Course content

This course aims to equip students with a robust foundation in hardware security, enabling them to effectively address and counter hardware security challenges in critical sector applications. Students will delve into various aspects of hardware security, including the life cycle of integrated circuits, supply chain security, hardware reverse engineering, and practical countermeasures against hardware security threats.

The course also unfolds contemporary and emerging topics like Physical Attacks, Tamper Protections, Lightweight Cryptography, Side-channel attacks, Fault Injection, Hardware Trojan Detection and Prevention in Printed Circuit board (PCB), Memory Extraction through UART/JTAG, Counterfeit Detection and Prevention. Through a blend of theoretical lectures, practical labs, and independent research, students will get a comprehensive understanding and hands-on experience in hardware security, from the chip to the system level.

This course aligns with key UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 9.1 pertains to secure infrastructure development for economic growth and well-being.; SDGs 17.6 and 17.7 promote technology development, transfer, and dissemination. Sub-Goal 17.7 capacity building encourages sharing knowledge and international cooperation for enhancing global security and sustainable development.

Learning outcome

Knowledge:

• Advance a comprehensive understanding of Hardware Security within Embedded Systems and its importance in critical sector applications.
• Advanced knowledge of the life cycle of integrated circuits, supply chain security, and hardware reverse engineering.
• Understand contemporary and emerging threats and methods for detection and prevention.

Skills:

• Ability to critically analyse existing theories and methods for studying hardware security and to independently apply such methods to related applications.
• Acquire hands-on experience in dealing with hardware security challenges from the chip to the system level through practical labs.

General competence:

1. Develop competence in identifying, analysing, and mitigating hardware security threats in real-world scenarios.
2. Develop the capability to conduct independent research in the field of hardware security, contributing to ongoing developments in the domain.

Learning methods and activities

The course is planned with lectures, guest lectures, hands-on lab exercises, and term paper assignments. Students are encouraged to collaborate, form groups, and collectively choose a term paper topic for their term paper, which should be related to an active research area covered in the course. The approval of group-wise oral presentations of term papers is required to complete group work successfully.

The course will be accessible to campus and remote students via the online learning management system on a best-effort basis.

Specific conditions

Recommended previous knowledge

Students are expected to have a basic understanding of electronic system components and programming skills in C, MATLAB and Python.

Course materials

M. Tehranipoor and C. Wang (Eds.), Introduction to Hardware Security and Trust, Springer, 2011. 2012, ISBN: 978-1-4419-8079-3.

S. Bhunia, M. Tehranipoor, Hardware Security: A Hands-on Learning Approach. Morgan Kaufmann, 2018, ISBN: 9780128124772.

At the beginning of the semester, a comprehensive set of course materials, including presentations, research articles, books, and video recordings, will be provided with electronic learning management systems.