Ransomware Attack as Hardware Trojan: A Feasibility and Demonstration Study
The integrated circuit (IC) ecosystem, today, is widely distributed. Usually, a handful of companies is involved in the development of a single chip – an environment that presents many opportunities for malicious activities such as the insertion of hardware trojan horses. This work presen...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2022-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
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| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9760411/ |
| _version_ | 1818231228313108480 |
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| author | Felipe Almeida Malik Imran Jaan Raik Samuel Pagliarini |
| author_facet | Felipe Almeida Malik Imran Jaan Raik Samuel Pagliarini |
| author_sort | Felipe Almeida |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The integrated circuit (IC) ecosystem, today, is widely distributed. Usually, a handful of companies is involved in the development of a single chip – an environment that presents many opportunities for malicious activities such as the insertion of hardware trojan horses. This work presents a specialized form of a hardware trojan that is able to mount a hardware-based ransomware attack, an attack that previously only existed in the software domain. This attack is therefore termed a hardware ransomware and is the main contribution of this work. As case studies, two architectures of the hardware ransomware are presented, along with a silicon demonstration in 65nm CMOS. In order to discuss the detectability of the malicious logic, the hardware ransomware is inserted in a complex system on chip (SoC). The experimental results show how an adversary can effortlessly insert the ransomware logic: the baseline SoC has a representative area utilization factor of 59.97% and, after the trojan is inserted, the area utilization factor increases by 0.73% to 60.70%. The inserted logic is also responsible for an increase of approximately 2% in static power – well within process variation margins. Finally, this paper discusses the implications of such an attack at length, showing that from the implementation and technological side, there are no barriers for an adversary to devise a hardware ransomware. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T10:47:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6510688a4edc403cab7d8e1e630f1340 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T10:47:03Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-6510688a4edc403cab7d8e1e630f13402022-12-22T00:26:51ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362022-01-0110448274483910.1109/ACCESS.2022.31689919760411Ransomware Attack as Hardware Trojan: A Feasibility and Demonstration StudyFelipe Almeida0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9148-5397Malik Imran1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1900-6387Jaan Raik2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8113-020XSamuel Pagliarini3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5294-0606Department of Computer Systems, Centre for Hardware Security, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, EstoniaDepartment of Computer Systems, Centre for Hardware Security, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, EstoniaDepartment of Computer Systems, Centre for Hardware Security, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, EstoniaDepartment of Computer Systems, Centre for Hardware Security, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, EstoniaThe integrated circuit (IC) ecosystem, today, is widely distributed. Usually, a handful of companies is involved in the development of a single chip – an environment that presents many opportunities for malicious activities such as the insertion of hardware trojan horses. This work presents a specialized form of a hardware trojan that is able to mount a hardware-based ransomware attack, an attack that previously only existed in the software domain. This attack is therefore termed a hardware ransomware and is the main contribution of this work. As case studies, two architectures of the hardware ransomware are presented, along with a silicon demonstration in 65nm CMOS. In order to discuss the detectability of the malicious logic, the hardware ransomware is inserted in a complex system on chip (SoC). The experimental results show how an adversary can effortlessly insert the ransomware logic: the baseline SoC has a representative area utilization factor of 59.97% and, after the trojan is inserted, the area utilization factor increases by 0.73% to 60.70%. The inserted logic is also responsible for an increase of approximately 2% in static power – well within process variation margins. Finally, this paper discusses the implications of such an attack at length, showing that from the implementation and technological side, there are no barriers for an adversary to devise a hardware ransomware.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9760411/Ransomware attackhardware securityhardware trojan horsemalicious logicASIC |
| spellingShingle | Felipe Almeida Malik Imran Jaan Raik Samuel Pagliarini Ransomware Attack as Hardware Trojan: A Feasibility and Demonstration Study IEEE Access Ransomware attack hardware security hardware trojan horse malicious logic ASIC |
| title | Ransomware Attack as Hardware Trojan: A Feasibility and Demonstration Study |
| title_full | Ransomware Attack as Hardware Trojan: A Feasibility and Demonstration Study |
| title_fullStr | Ransomware Attack as Hardware Trojan: A Feasibility and Demonstration Study |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ransomware Attack as Hardware Trojan: A Feasibility and Demonstration Study |
| title_short | Ransomware Attack as Hardware Trojan: A Feasibility and Demonstration Study |
| title_sort | ransomware attack as hardware trojan a feasibility and demonstration study |
| topic | Ransomware attack hardware security hardware trojan horse malicious logic ASIC |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9760411/ |
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