SANSCrypt: A Sporadic-Authentication-Based Sequential Logic Encryption Scheme [article]

Yinghua Hu, Kaixin Yang, Shahin Nazarian, Pierluigi Nuzzo
2020 arXiv   pre-print
We propose SANSCrypt, a novel sequential logic encryption scheme to protect integrated circuits against reverse engineering. Previous sequential encryption methods focus on modifying the circuit state machine such that the correct functionality can be accessed by applying the correct key sequence only once. Considering the risk associated with one-time authentication, SANSCrypt adopts a new temporal dimension to logic encryption, by requiring the user to sporadically perform multiple
more » ... ions according to a protocol based on pseudo-random number generation. Analysis and validation results on a set of benchmark circuits show that SANSCrypt offers a substantial output corruptibility if the key sequences are applied incorrectly. Moreover, it exhibits an exponential resilience to existing attacks, including SAT-based attacks, while maintaining a reasonably low overhead.
arXiv:2010.05168v1 fatcat:hkqj2o2yszhznjeky3b6fz4l6y