Re: Need electron microscope

Markus Kuhn (Markus.Kuhn@cl.cam.ac.uk)
Tue, 03 Feb 1998 15:56:08 +0000

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David Honig wrote on 1998-02-03 06:52 UTC:
> Ross Anderson has a most excellent paper on the delaminating
> of integrated circuits. Strong acids (HNO3, HF, etc.) are your
> friends.

I presented this paper, which I coauthored with Ross, in fall 1996
in Oakland. We have learned a lot about hardware hacking since then,
and I'll give an updated version of this talk tomorrow here in
Cambridge, for those of you who live in the area. The Oakland slides
as well as the paper are on my home page.

Summary: The equipment you want is a laser for local depassivation and
circuit modification, a microprober for accessing pairs of bus lines
(which is feasible down to ~0.7 µm structures with some tricks), and a fast
recording device to capture the signals on the busses. In addition,
you want to have some high-res photographs of the die to aid in navigation
on the surface. The rest is skill and patience.

Hardware Security - Smartcards and other Tamper-Resistant Modules

Speaker: Markus Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Laboratory
Date: Wednesday, 4th February 1998, 16:00
Place: Babbage Lecture Theatre, New Museums Site, Pembroke Street

Many computer security applications depend on the secure storage of
secret key material. The processors storing these keys cannot be
protected by walls and guards in applications such as digital purses
or pay-TV encryption systems; often the key memory has to be given
into the hands of the attacker. Smartcards and other tamper-resistant
processors are frequently quoted as a solution for this problem, but
there is little published material about how difficult it is for
attackers to circumvent the physical protection of these low-cost
devices. The talk will discuss various techniques that have been
applied to break the security processors used in pay-TV encryption
systems and digital purses with much less effort then the
manufacturers had hoped.

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Lab, Cambridge University, UK
email: mkuhn at acm.org,  home page: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

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