UT Dallas’ logic locking team in the cybersecurity competition included (from left to right) Dr. Kaveh Shamsi, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dr. Kanad Basu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; and graduate students Shamik Kundu, Rajesh Kumar Datta and Guangwei Zhao.
S ome of the most destructive computer hacks occur before computers are even assembled. A student team from the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science aimed to thwart would-be hardware hackers through logic locking, a technique designed to prevent hardware attacks, and earned international acclaim with their creative solution.
“The circuit is like a room,” said Guangwei Zhao, a PhD student and research assistant in electrical and computer engineering. “When you want to go into the room, you need to go through the door. Logic locking is like a key into the circuit, and the only people who understand how to get in are ourselves.”
“CSAW is one the biggest global competitions,” said Dr. Kanad Basu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and founder of the TIES Research Group. “It has expanded to India, Latin America and Europe. When I first joined UT Dallas, I led a team to third place.”
“As a PhD student, I took second place in an embedded security competition,” Shamsi said. “This Logic Locking competition focused on software I have been researching and working on for six years. The students began by using our software but then developed and adapted it together.”
Shamsi’s leadership made an immediate impact.
I never thought previously that logic locking was sophisticated,” said Guangwei Zhao, a graduate student on the Jonsson School team that won second place in the worldwide cybersecurity competition. “The advantage is that the experience broadened my eyes, so I thought of how it could be applied elsewhere.
“With Dr. Shamsi’s added expertise, we took second at the finals,” said Basu, who is also affiliated with the Cyber Security Research and Education Institute at UT Dallas.
In addition to Zhao, the team included Rajesh Kumar Datta, a doctoral student and teaching assistant in electrical engineering and Shamik Kundu, a doctoral student and research assistant in computer engineering.
THE KEY TO HARDWARE
PROTECTION
Logic locking is a complex process designed to protect integrated circuits from security threats including Trojan attacks, piracy and reverse engineering.
“The technique of logic locking started around 2005-2008 when the concept was first proposed,” Shamsi said. “Since then, people have been going back and forth to develop it, then try to secure it as attacks have become more sophisticated.”
This year, the TIES participants focused on embedded field programmable gate array (eFPGA) redaction.
The team attempted a cost-effective method of embedding the key within the design itself. They were able to activate parts of the eFPGA that would have been unintelligible to potential hackers after the manufacture was complete, thus providing a reliable method for preventing reverse engineering attacks.
“The key to logic locking is that you try to obfuscate your design,” Shamsi said. “However, it’s very difficult to secure. For the competition, they picked the most secure logic locking and set it up against the toughest attack.”
The up-to-date, evolving nature of the challenge was particularly interesting for the team.
“We mostly use benchmark circuits for fabrication, but here we used eFPGA circuits currently in industry,” said Kundu, also a PhD student in electrical engineering. “It’s interesting to see how everyone solved this problem.”
The team met remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic prior to the virtual competition. Debugging and working together on physical hardware intensified the challenge.
“It would have been a lot easier to work in person,” Kundu said. “When working with circuits, it’s not always possible to use the whiteboard.”
Ultimately, however, the team developed a unique solution, which gave them a competitive edge.
“The creative part is that we reversed the functionality of the eFPGA,” Zhao said. “Our method focused on recovery of the functionality.”
Shamik Kundu, a doctoral
student and research assistant
in computer engineering
UNCOVERING CAREER POTENTIAL
Companies across the globe face cybersecurity threats, so student competitors are well-positioned to land interviews or invitations for research presentations.
“Companies specializing in everything from software security to AI to CAD will notice,” Basu said.
That’s an added benefit for Kundu: “If your approach is promising, that increases your chances of getting a call. There are representatives paying attention from government and major companies like IBM, Intel, Amazon and Facebook.”
Additionally, the competition motivates students to enter the most advanced areas of research while questioning their assumptions.
“I never thought previously that logic locking was sophisticated,” Zhao said. “The advantage is that the experience broadened my eyes, so I thought of how it could be applied elsewhere. Do we need this key or the functionality?”
The team is already planning for future opportunities to collaborate.
“The competition topics change each year, so I’m looking forward to next year’s focus,” Zhao said. “This experience produced real innovation.”
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