Hardware Security
Head of Research Area: Honorarprofessorin Dr. -Ing. Zoya Dyka
The Hardware Security research area is affiliated with the Chair of Wireless Systems and complements the chair’s research by addressing secure, tamper-resistant and trustworthy hardware development.
The research focuses on physical attacks against cryptographic and embedded systems. This includes side-channel attacks, where measurable physical effects such as power consumption, electromagnetic emissions or execution time are analysed, as well as fault-injection and manipulation attacks against the functionality of cryptographic hardware.
A central objective is the development of methods and design processes for circuits that are resistant against a broad spectrum of physical attacks. The work investigates algorithmic and holistic approaches to reduce the success of such attacks. In the long term, automated design tools should support designers in developing security-optimised and resistant circuits, even without deep expert knowledge of individual attack types.
In addition to cryptographic circuits, the research also addresses emerging hardware structures, such as RRAM cells and their use as hardware accelerators for Artificial Intelligence methods. Investigating their resistance against manipulation, for example through optical fault injections, is another important research focus.
Main Target
Development of a design methodology for engineering circuits that are resistant against a broad spectrum of physical attacks.
Research Topics
- hardware security
- side-channel attacks and countermeasures
- fault-injection and manipulation attacks
- efficient implementation of cryptographic algorithms in hardware
- automated security-oriented circuit optimisation
- application of Artificial Intelligence methods for designing resistant circuits
- resistance of AI accelerators and RRAM structures against physical attacks
- contribution of hardware security to the engineering of resilient systems
Honorary Professor Dr.-Ing. Zoya Dyka
Zoya Dyka received her Diploma degree in Radiophysics and Electronics from Taras Shevchenko University Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1996 and her Ph.D. degree from Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany, in 2012. Since 2000, she has been with IHP in Frankfurt (Oder). Since November 2022, she has been an Honorary Professor at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg.
Since 2013, she has led a young researchers group in the field of tamper-resistant cryptographic ICs. Since 2018, she has led a research group in the field of resilient cyber-physical systems of systems, and since 2021, she has led a research team in the field of hardware security.
She has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed technical articles and filed eight patents in the field of security, six of which have been granted. Her research interests include efficient hardware accelerators for cryptographic operations, side-channel attack countermeasures, anti-tampering techniques and resilience.
Publications
An overview of publications is available on the ResearchGate profile of Honorary Professor Dr.-Ing. Zoya Dyka.