Securing Soft IP Cores in FPGA based Reconfigurable Mobile Heterogeneous Systems

TL;DR

This paper addresses security challenges in FPGA-based mobile heterogeneous systems by proposing two protocols for protecting soft IP cores, including a trust-based approach and one utilizing Direct Anonymous Attestation, with a prototype implementation.

Contribution

It introduces two novel protocols for secure deployment of soft IP cores in reconfigurable mobile systems, accommodating different trust scenarios.

Findings

Protocols effectively protect IP integrity and confidentiality.

Prototype demonstrates practical feasibility of the proposed security solutions.

Approach enhances security without heavily relying on system designer trust.

Abstract

The mobile application market is rapidly growing and changing, offering always brand new software to install in increasingly powerful devices. Mobile devices become pervasive and more heterogeneous, embedding latest technologies such as multicore architectures, special-purpose circuits and reconfigurable logic. In a future mobile market scenario reconfigurable systems are employed to provide high-speed functionalities to assist execution of applications. However, new security concerns are introduced. In particular, protecting the Intellectual Property of the exchanged soft IP cores is a serious concern. The available techniques for preserving integrity, confidentiality and authenticity suffer from the limitation of heavily relying onto the system designer. In this paper we propose two different protocols suitable for the secure deployment of soft IP cores in FPGA-based mobile heterogeneous systems where multiple independent actors are involved: a simple scenario requiring trust relationship between entities, and a more complex scenario where no trust relationship exists through adoption of the Direct Anonymous Attestation protocol. Finally, we provide a prototype implementation of the proposed architectures.