µArchiFI is a pre-silicon formal analysis tool for evaluating the robustness of embedded systems against fault injection attacks. In particular, µArchiFI is able to take into account the subtle interactions between a microarchitecture and the software executed on a processor.
µArchiFI enables users to:
µArchiFI is available as an open-source basis.
Fault injection attacks exploit physical perturbations (radiation, clock disturbances, etc.) in embedded systems to gain access to sensitive data or escalate execution privileges. Fault effects propagate from the hardware level up to the software level, making purely hardware- or software-based models insufficient.
µArchiFI enables a comprehensive analysis by jointly considering the processor, the software stack, and the attacker model, thereby helping designers develop and formally verify countermeasures against fault injection attacks.
µArchiFI stands out for its key strengths:
µArchiFI can identify potential vulnerabilities in a hardware/software system or formally prove its robustness against a given fault model.
µArchiFI is therefore a valuable tool for countermeasure designers, enabling them to evaluate the security benefits of proposed protections during the design phase. Throughout system development, hardware designers can analyze the detected vulnerabilities in order to refine both the specification and the implementation of the countermeasures.
In addition, µArchiFI can be used to assess the overall robustness of a system against fault injection attacks.
A key component in the security of System-on-Chip (SoC) platforms is the hardware Root of Trust (RoT). Traditionally, the robustness evaluation of an RoT relies on costly post-silicon characterization campaigns whose results may vary depending on the evaluator, the tools, and the testing methodology.
In collaboration with Technical University of Graz (TU Graz), the development of a new technique called k-FRP (k-Fault Resistant Partitioning) enabled a world-first achievement: a security analysis of OpenTitan against fault injection attacks. OpenTitan was developed by a consortium of digital systems and cybersecurity industry leaders.
µArchiFI claims several world-first achievements demonstrating its technological advances:
Go to the µArchiFI page on Github
