Title: Good Cyber Starts with Hardware
Cybersecurity demands securing the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of information contained within and flowing through systems. While cybersecurity mainly considers protections at the software and network levels, this is only the first line of defense. More critically, the flow of information must occur in a physical layer consisting of gates, transistors, and materials. In this presentation, we will assert that many security vulnerabilities arise from a failure at the last line of defense, that is, a failure to understand and account for the fundamental physics and material properties of information devices. We will discuss cryptographic side-channel analysis as one specific example where provably secure mathematical and software algorithms can be vulnerable to the physics occurring at the hardware layer. Here, computations require current flow through transistors, which result in power, electromagnetic, and photonic emissions that can reveal sensitive information like a cryptographic key. Quantitative metrics have been established to measure the amount of information leakage that occurs in cryptographic hardware, and we will discuss efforts to mitigate and decrease that information leakage. Since computation is ultimately rooted in the physics of hardware, we will conclude this talk by discussing how these physics-based foundations can be applied to current global cybersecurity priorities, such as the microelectronics supply chain (CHIPS Act) and space cyber.
Dr. Calvin Chan is a Senior Principal Research Associate with the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for National Security Initiatives. He is a technical and programmatic leader in microelectronics, uniting academic, industry, and government partners in applied research to advance secure information technologies. Over the past 22 years, his work has spanned the entire range of the microelectronics life-cycle, including basic materials and device physics research, circuit and systems design, and technical and security assessments for government and industry. The physics of energy storage and transfer through physical systems is an undercutting theme of his research. Calvin is an author of over 60 peer-reviewed publications, patents, and national reports, and currently serves on the Organizing and Technical Programming Committees of the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust. He has previously served on multiple committees, panels, and boards for the American Physical Society, government working groups, and Industry/University consortia. When he’s not at work, you can often find Calvin outside, training and volunteering for wilderness search and rescue.
