Skip to main content
Article
FIFA: Exploring a Focally Induced Fault Attack Strategy in Near-Threshold Computing
IEEE Embedded Systems Letters
  • Prabal Basu, Utah State University
  • Chidhambaranathan Rajamanikkam, Utah State University
  • Aatreyi Bal, Utah State University
  • Pramesh Pandey, Utah State University
  • Trevor Carter, Utah State University
  • Koushik Chakraborty, Utah State University
  • Sanghamitra Roy, Utah State University
Document Type
Article
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Publication Date
12-13-2017
Abstract

In this letter, we explore the emerging security threats of near-threshold computing (NTC). Researchers have shown that the delay sensitivity of a circuit to supply voltage variation tremendously increases, as the circuit's operating conditions shift from traditional super-threshold values to NTC values. As a result, NTC systems become extremely vulnerable to timing fault attacks, jeopardizing trustworthy computing. Inspired by the operation of a polymorphic virus, we propose a novel threat model for NTC, referred to as a focally induced fault attack (FIFA). FIFA employs a machine learning framework to ascertain the circuit vulnerabilities and generates targeted software modules to cause a breach of end-user privacy. Our experimental results, obtained from a rigorous machine learning approach, indicate the efficacy of FIFA, in a low-power mobile platform.

Comments
© 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Citation Information
Prabal Basu, Chidhambaranathan R, Aatreyi Bal, Pramesh Pandey, Trevor Carter, Koushik Chakraborty and Sanghamitra Roy, FIFA: Exploring a Focally Induced Fault At-tack Strategy in Near-Threshold Computing, IEEE Embedded System Letters (ESL), Volume 10, Issue 4, December 2018.