Fault injection Attacks on Embedded Chips

Author: Jasper van Woudenberg, CTO Riscure North America
Conference: DESIGN West summit 2012
Track: Hacking Embedded Systems" track
Date: Tuesday March 27, 4:30 PM

Title: ESC-232: Fault Injection Attacks on Embedded Chips

Abstract: Fault injection attacks are moving into the realm of embedded systems: secure memory 'readers' that use glitching to bypass security mechanisms are commercially available, and more recently Xbox 360 code security was broken by glitching the processor's reset line. Fault injection attacks aim to change the behavior of a device; e.g. to bypass authentication or extract secret information. These attacks are well-studied in the context of secure micro-controllers, and are now actively employed on embedded processors. We explain the fundamentals of fault injection, covering their history on secure micro-controllers, the tools used for their execution, and the possible effects. The audience can expect an exciting talk about an evolving attack technology.