HyLock: Hybrid Logic Locking Based on Structural Fuzzing for Resisting Learning-based Attacks

The growing popularity of the fabless manufacturing model has increased the importance of Logic locking as a key-based method for intellectual property (IP) protection. Recently, machine learning-based attacks have broken most existing locks by finding structural traces or undoing optimizations that obfuscate them. In this paper, we introduce structural fuzzing as a simple, random non-optimizing heuristic that can obfuscate the lock against learning-based attacks, preventing the attacker from predicting the key. We proceed to apply structural fuzzing to multiplexer-based logic locking and propose HyLock, a lock with improved resilience against learning-based attacks. In the benchmarks, when compared with a state of the art lock, there is on average a 17% decrease in the number of correctly predicted key bits.