We present an inno­v­a­tive solu­tion to ver­i­fy the authen­tic­i­ty, integri­ty and/or the phys­i­cal state of an object through elec­tro­mag­net­ic wave prop­a­ga­tion and phys­i­cal unclon­able func­tion (PUF)-concepts. Espe­cial­ly they enable manip­u­la­tion tests of big­ger struc­tures e.g. com­mer­cial com­put­ers and their periph­er­al. Our solu­tion pro­tects secret infor­ma­tion with­out using an attack detec­tion cir­cuit or data erase cir­cuit, known as a dif­fi­cult and yet unsolved prob­lem. We offer a solu­tion that extends exist­ing chip- or PCB-lev­el tam­per proofs and can be eas­i­ly retro­fit­ted.

What is the project’s goal?

Cyber-phys­i­cal sys­tems increas­ing­ly dom­i­nate every­day life and are often found in untrust­wor­thy envi­ron­ments in which sen­si­tive data worth pro­tect­ing are processed. In spite of secure com­mu­ni­ca­tion, data extrac­tion and/or manip­u­la­tion is often eas­i­ly pos­si­ble with phys­i­cal access to the com­po­nents. The aim of our project is to ver­i­fy the integri­ty of such sys­tems and to detect attack attempts and ini­ti­ate appro­pri­ate coun­ter­mea­sures.

What is so inno­v­a­tive about it?

The prop­a­ga­tion behav­iour of elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves enables the pro­tec­tion of indi­vid­ual com­po­nents to be extend­ed to the entire periph­ery of a sys­tem. This enables attacks, such as drilling into an ATM, to be detect­ed. In addi­tion, by deriv­ing cryp­to­graph­ic key mate­r­i­al from the unclon­able com­plex­i­ty of the envi­ron­ment, pro­tec­tion is cre­at­ed which pro­tects secret infor­ma­tion with­out attack detec­tion cir­cuit­ry and data era­sure cir­cuit­ry.

Well-known appli­ca­tion sce­nar­ios are…

• Crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture sys­tems locat­ed in remote places such as trans­former sta­tions, wells or sewage works
• Defense and inter­nal secu­ri­ty, for exam­ple satel­lites, com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems of any kind or armories
• Bank­ing, e.g. serv­er and cash dispenser/ATMs
• Indus­try 4.0, e.g. pay-per-use appli­ca­tions

What is the added val­ue of the project?

Due to its gener­ic ori­en­ta­tion, the pro­tec­tion can be used flex­i­bly in size and appli­ca­tion and is char­ac­ter­ized by the fol­low­ing aspects:

• Cumu­la­tive ful­fil­ment of the require­ments for the ide­al pro­tec­tion of com­put­er sys­tems.

• Exten­sion of secu­ri­ty to the entire com­put­er periph­ery.

• Sim­ple reini­tial­iza­tion of the pro­tec­tion sys­tem.

• Con­sid­er­a­tion of miss­ing pow­er sup­ply and offline sce­nar­ios.

• Ver­sa­tile range of appli­ca­tions and retro­fitta­bil­i­ty of exist­ing sys­tems.