General information
Organisation
The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is a key player in research, development and innovation in four main areas :
• defence and security,
• nuclear energy (fission and fusion),
• technological research for industry,
• fundamental research in the physical sciences and life sciences.
Drawing on its widely acknowledged expertise, and thanks to its 16000 technicians, engineers, researchers and staff, the CEA actively participates in collaborative projects with a large number of academic and industrial partners.
The CEA is established in ten centers spread throughout France
Reference
SL-DRT-24-0683
Direction
DRT
Thesis topic details
Category
Technological challenges
Thesis topics
Horizontal Magnetic Pulses and the Impact of Ultrafast Transient Current on Hardware Security of SoCs
Contract
Thèse
Job description
Work carried out within the CEA-Leti has shown that physical attacks can be a threat to the security mechanisms of SoCs (System-On-Chips). Indeed, fault injections by electromagnetic disturbance have already led to an elevation of privileges by authenticating with an illegitimate password, or more recently have made it possible to circumvent one of the highest security levels of a SoC, which is the Secure Boot. However, the technologies integrated into this type of target are increasingly sophisticated, such as the technological node less than or equal to 7 nm for the new Samsung S20. The implementation of these attacks requires state-of-the-art equipment not currently available commercially (very small diameter probe, high transient current pulse generator, etc.).
The thesis defended in 2022 by Clément Gaine within our team made it possible to study several components of the EM injection chain, in particular a main element such as the electromagnetic injection probe.
New aspects will be explored in this thesis, in particular the complete chain of injection from the pulse generator to the creation of an electromotive force in the target, induced by the EM probe via very high current gradients (di/dt). The objective is to master the complete EMFI chain in order to define the most suitable injection system for characterizing a smartphone and solving the challenges related to this type of target such as: the complex microarchitecture, the multilayer software stack, the complex packaging with sometimes the stacking of several components on the same chip (PoP: Package On Package).
The Security of Physical Objects and Systems laboratory will welcome the doctoral student to its Gardanne site within the joint research team “Secure Systems and Architectures” (SAS) between the CEA and EMSE. This team has cutting-edge equipment with physical attack benches at the international state-of-the-art level. It is located between Aix-En-Povence and Marseille in Gardanne on the Georges Charpak Provence campus. The thesis will be directed by Jean-Pierre NIKOLOVSKI and co-supervised by Driss ABOULKASSIMI.
More here:
- https://www.mines-stetienne.fr/recherche/centres-et-departements/systemes-et-architectures-securises-sas/
- https://exfiles.eu/, présentation vidéo https://vimeo.com/441318313
- https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2018&q=Driss+ABOULKASSIMI&btnG=&oq=Driss+
University / doctoral school
Sciences, Ingénierie, Santé (EDSIS)
Université de Lyon
Thesis topic location
Site
Grenoble
Requester
Position start date
01/10/2024
Person to be contacted by the applicant
ABOULKASSIMI Driss driss.aboulkassimi@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/DSYS/SSSEC/LTSO
880 Route de Mimet
13541
Gardanne
0442616706
Tutor / Responsible thesis director
NIKOLOVSKI Jean-Pierre jean-pierre.nikolovski@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/Leti/DSYS/SSSEC/LTSO
880, Route de Mimet
13541 Gardanne
0660283970
En savoir plus
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2018&q=Driss+ABOULKASSIMI&btnG=&oq=Driss+
https://www.mines-stetienne.fr/recherche/centres-et-departements/systemes-et-architectures-securises-sas/
https://www.leti-cea.fr/cea-tech/leti/Pages/recherche-appliquee/infrastructures-de-recherche/plateforme-cybersecurite.aspx