Researchers presented new techniques to fight sophisticated hacking at a tech conference. Here are the highlights:
Self-destruct chips:
- A team from Vermont and Marvell created chips with unique fingerprints that can destroy themselves (through increased voltage) if tampered with. This prevents both counterfeiting and unauthorized access to information.
- Probe detection: Columbia and Intel researchers developed a circuit that detects probes attached to a circuit board, preventing hackers from gaining physical control of a system.
- Signal Obscuring: Researchers from Texas and Intel created a method to hide a chip’s power and electromagnetic signals, making it harder for attackers to steal information.
These innovations could improve chip security and save businesses billions from chip counterfeiting.
Comments
NGL. After I saw “Self-destruct chips”, I was just overwhelmed by Mission Impossible theme song.
Now that there is an old Dell Inspiron. I had one with that shell ca. 2006.
I think this wasn’t new and there were such things for military use already?..
“Billions lost to counterfeit chips” yeah all those garage fabs cranking out fake 4090s are the REAL problem in the market
This will be used for enforcing subscriptions on enterprise gear, I promise.
If these aren’t too costly to implement and game consoles continue to use specialized hardware, this could be used to seriously hamper attempts at reverse engineering for modchips and similar things.
It also could be disasterous for right to repair, and against hobbists keeping old hardware running by using third party modifications decades after the end of a product’s life.
I’d also question how much of chip design “piracy” is actually done by reverse engineering nowadays vs corporate espionage or leaks of internal design docs.
Reverse engineering of hardware is quickly becoming too complex for non-machine-assisted workflows. I’d imagine this type of destructive chip really only makes sense cryptology modules, but unless a designer can also manufacture the chip in-house or otherwise guarantee against supply chain attacks, this is a half measure.
sounds like it closes a data theft vector but opens one hell of a ddos DoS vector in its place.
Still, having this option can’t be a bad thing. Ultimately it’s an engineer (or PM I suppose) that decides to use this chip based on the product requirements.
Sometimes you want to fail closed, or purposefully fail catastrophically if some constraints aren’t met.
Of a permanent DoS, like frying a chip remotely. Things which were urban legends in my childhood are being made reality.
I don’t think greed’s the problem, it’s necessary for survival of a society. But like many other necessary things it should be contained, and right now it really isn’t.
