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HW/SW Contracts for Security Analysis Against Fault Injection Attacks on Open-source Processors


Thesis topic details

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-25-0612  

Direction

DRT

Thesis topic details

Category

Technological challenges

Thesis topics

HW/SW Contracts for Security Analysis Against Fault Injection Attacks on Open-source Processors

Contract

Thèse

Job description

This thesis focuses on the cybersecurity of embedded systems, particularly the vulnerability of processors and programs to fault injection attacks. These attacks disrupt the normal functioning of systems, allowing attackers to exploit weaknesses to access sensitive information. Although formal methods have been developed to analyze the robustness of systems, they often limit their analyses to hardware or software separately, overlooking the interaction between the two.

The proposed work aims to formalize hardware/software (HW/SW) contracts specifically for security analysis against fault injection. Building on a hardware partitioning approach, this research seeks to mitigate scalability issues related to the complexity of microarchitecture models. Expected outcomes include the development of techniques and tools for effective security verification of embedded systems, as well as the creation of contracts that facilitate the assessment of compliance for both hardware and software implementations. This approach could also reduce the time-to-market for secure systems.

University / doctoral school

Mathématiques, Sciences et Technologies de l’Information, Informatique (MSTII)
Université Grenoble Alpes

Thesis topic location

Site

Grenoble

Requester

Position start date

01/10/2025

Person to be contacted by the applicant

COUROUSSE Damien damien.courousse@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/DSCIN/DSCIN/LFIM
Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives
MINATEC Campus | 17 rue des Martyrs | 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9
+33 (0)4 38 78 04 66

Tutor / Responsible thesis director

COUROUSSE Damien damien.courousse@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/DSCIN/DSCIN/LFIM
Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives
MINATEC Campus | 17 rue des Martyrs | 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9
+33 (0)4 38 78 04 66

En savoir plus

https://damien.courousse.fr

https://list.cea.fr/en