Tampering, Snooping, and Electromagnetic Attack Proof Coating on Printed Circuit Boards
Tampering, Snooping, and Electromagnetic Attack Proof Coating on Printed Circuit Boards
Tuesday, October 30, 2018: 2:40 PM
Exhibit Halls A/B (Phoenix Convention Center)
Summary:
In the last two decades, the supply chain of printed circuit boards (PCBs) has become distributed with growing complexity of PCB designs and the economic trend of outsourcing the PCB manufacturing. This makes the PCBs more vulnerable to security attacks, such as tampering, snooping, and electromagnetic (EM) attacks. Because of the large feature size of PCBs (compared to integrated circuits), it is challenging to protect the PCBs from these attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel silicon carbide (SiC) coating technique to provide passive protection for PCBs from in-field tampering, snooping and EM attacks. In addition, capacitive sensors are designed based on the SiC coating, offering active defense against these attacks. The coating and sensors can be implemented on PCBs in cost-efficient ways and the area overheads are minimized.
In the last two decades, the supply chain of printed circuit boards (PCBs) has become distributed with growing complexity of PCB designs and the economic trend of outsourcing the PCB manufacturing. This makes the PCBs more vulnerable to security attacks, such as tampering, snooping, and electromagnetic (EM) attacks. Because of the large feature size of PCBs (compared to integrated circuits), it is challenging to protect the PCBs from these attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel silicon carbide (SiC) coating technique to provide passive protection for PCBs from in-field tampering, snooping and EM attacks. In addition, capacitive sensors are designed based on the SiC coating, offering active defense against these attacks. The coating and sensors can be implemented on PCBs in cost-efficient ways and the area overheads are minimized.