IC activation and user authentication for security-sensitive systems

A number of applications depend on the protection of security-sensitive hardware, preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to the functionality of the integrated circuits (ICs). Failure to protect such devices can have consequences ranging from the loss of financial revenue to the loss of human lives. The key to providing protection does not lie in the prevention of theft but in a secure IC activation and user authentication procedure so that an adversary has nothing to gain by acquiring the physical hardware. The proposed protection scheme is robust against various types of malicious attack, such as reverse engineering to extract the circuit layout, brute-forcing the access key, and FIBing. The scheme provides the capability both for one-time or every-powerup activation and for every-powerup user authentication. Given the resource constraints of many security-sensitive hardware systems (such as those deployed in remote locations or carried in combat arenas), this paper proposes and evaluates the cost of several techniques for achieving secure activation and authentication.