Low-level Hardware Attacks: No Longer an Emerging Threat
As organizations have improved their cybersecurity posture, motivated attackers compensate by looking for other attack vectors to continue to achieve their objectives. Efforts to improve system and device security have produced a greater availability and reliance on hardware security features, and as component and device designers continue to innovate with new security features, attackers continue to innovate and share new tools and attack techniques. Increasingly, this means that to provide solid security posture for a component, device, or system, a full-stack perspective on security is mandatory.
More effort from developers is required to understand and increase resistance to low-level hardware attacks, including:
- Manufacturers of typical microchips and embedded devices that require features such as secure boot and resistance to firmware extraction
- Manufacturers of specialty microchips and integrated circuits (ICs) with security features such as secure elements, secure enclaves, encrypted read only memory (ROMs), hardware root of trust, etc.
- Product manufacturers who depend on microchips with key security features as a core control of their overall product or ecosystem security model
Defending against low-level hardware attacks is critical for most every organization today, but the topic remains largely inaccessible to the key stakeholders who can act to improve security posture to better resist and defend against these attacks. To support improved security posture on these critical components, IOActive is making new materials available to the community to aid in understanding the attack vectors and threats.
IOActive is very pleased to announce the release of our eGuide titled “The State of Silicon Chip Hacking,” which is intended to make the very opaque topic of low-level attacks on microchips and ICs more accessible to security team members, business leaders, semiconductor engineers, and even laypersons.