4.2 Description of the First Documented Facts …
293
the designed microcircuits installed in real computing systems and radioelectronic
devices.
As we demonstrated in [3], such undocumented functions actually existed in the
past, during the stage of development of microelectronic technologies, and they
still exist today. Moreover, even the authors themselves, during their time as young
developing engineers at the initial stage of their professional activity, used embedded
hardware backdoors to solve their private engineering problems.
Pursuing more than purely scientific interests, the authors of this book, who at
the time of its writing were members of the headquarters of a large microelectronic holding supplying microcircuits and semiconductor devices to world markets,
including Russian companies designing and manufacturing radiotechnical critical
equipment at the very least due to their line of duty has to study this new problem
fundamentally and (if these problems would prove to be real) take all possible technical, organizational, and administrative measures to ensure effective protection
of their microcircuits from these hazards.
Therefore, before performing a detailed study of all technical features of the
examination object—hardware Trojans (classification, introduction methods, detection methods, protection methods, etc.), the authors had to make sure that in addition
to the obvious theoretical possibility, at least one of the researchers not only found
such hardware Trojan in a real microcircuit, but also officially documented this fact—
at least in the form of a scientific article that passed the necessary cycle of expertise
and was published in public sources.
This section provides a list and description of the facts of detecting such live
hardware Trojans in chips designed for both military and commercial purposes,
which were published in open scientific and technical journals.
Therefore, in order to avoid possible inaccuracies and so-called discrepancies,
the authors tried to present the arguments and technical details of the cited literary
sources as close as possible to the original text in the final text of this section.
Due to this reason, further materials of this sections will sometimes include
phrases and statements previously formulated by the authors of this book: it is not
due to negligence of the authors; instead, it was done to demonstrate that the authors’
opinion on this specific subject coincides with published opinions of many other independent researches who, unlike us, have been studying this problem professionally
for a long time.
For example, the work [110] contains the summary of the first officially documented fact of identification of a deliberately embedded defect in a real microcircuit
(basic matrix FPGA chip) manufactured at a semiconductor plant. It is important
to note here that in terms of functional purpose, this microcircuit can be used in
military applications. Using the new self-developed and patented equipment, the
authors [110] first managed to identify and document a specific technical solution of
a hardware Trojan deliberately built into the chip of the Actel/MicrosemiProASIC3
microcircuit, which was specifically designed to provide unauthorized access to the
internal FPGA configuration. This embedded “defect” was discovered among other
numerous additional undocumented functions used to work with the JTAG protocol.
293
the designed microcircuits installed in real computing systems and radioelectronic
devices.
As we demonstrated in [3], such undocumented functions actually existed in the
past, during the stage of development of microelectronic technologies, and they
still exist today. Moreover, even the authors themselves, during their time as young
developing engineers at the initial stage of their professional activity, used embedded
hardware backdoors to solve their private engineering problems.
Pursuing more than purely scientific interests, the authors of this book, who at
the time of its writing were members of the headquarters of a large microelectronic holding supplying microcircuits and semiconductor devices to world markets,
including Russian companies designing and manufacturing radiotechnical critical
equipment at the very least due to their line of duty has to study this new problem
fundamentally and (if these problems would prove to be real) take all possible technical, organizational, and administrative measures to ensure effective protection
of their microcircuits from these hazards.
Therefore, before performing a detailed study of all technical features of the
examination object—hardware Trojans (classification, introduction methods, detection methods, protection methods, etc.), the authors had to make sure that in addition
to the obvious theoretical possibility, at least one of the researchers not only found
such hardware Trojan in a real microcircuit, but also officially documented this fact—
at least in the form of a scientific article that passed the necessary cycle of expertise
and was published in public sources.
This section provides a list and description of the facts of detecting such live
hardware Trojans in chips designed for both military and commercial purposes,
which were published in open scientific and technical journals.
Therefore, in order to avoid possible inaccuracies and so-called discrepancies,
the authors tried to present the arguments and technical details of the cited literary
sources as close as possible to the original text in the final text of this section.
Due to this reason, further materials of this sections will sometimes include
phrases and statements previously formulated by the authors of this book: it is not
due to negligence of the authors; instead, it was done to demonstrate that the authors’
opinion on this specific subject coincides with published opinions of many other independent researches who, unlike us, have been studying this problem professionally
for a long time.
For example, the work [110] contains the summary of the first officially documented fact of identification of a deliberately embedded defect in a real microcircuit
(basic matrix FPGA chip) manufactured at a semiconductor plant. It is important
to note here that in terms of functional purpose, this microcircuit can be used in
military applications. Using the new self-developed and patented equipment, the
authors [110] first managed to identify and document a specific technical solution of
a hardware Trojan deliberately built into the chip of the Actel/MicrosemiProASIC3
microcircuit, which was specifically designed to provide unauthorized access to the
internal FPGA configuration. This embedded “defect” was discovered among other
numerous additional undocumented functions used to work with the JTAG protocol.