ABSTRACT:
A laser on a semiconductor chip causes the photoelectric effect inside transistors, resulting in computational errors. Attackers have been exploiting this effect to break cryptographic modules for more than 2 decades, and its countermeasure/pen-testing is mandatory for high-security products such as smartcards. In 2020, I worked with Sara Rampazzi and other US researchers to extend laser injection attacks to microphones. The new LightCommands attack injects arbitrary signal to a microphone by illuminating it with a modulated laser, resulting in a silent voice-command injection attack on smart speakers and other voice assistants. This result opened the unexplored hardware security threats targeting sensors and analog circuits with lasers. In this presentation, I will talk about (i) a brief history of laser fault injection attacks on cryptography, (ii) LightCommands, and (iii) my recent projects on laser-based security evaluation of various sensors and analog circuits.
Bio:
Takeshi Sugawara received a Ph.D. from Tohoku University, Sendai, in 2011. He joined Mitsubishi Electric Corporation in 2011 and was involved in the R&D of embedded systems security for smartcard, automotive, and industrial products. He is currently an Associate Professor at The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, since 2017. His research interest involves hardware and embedded systems security, lightweight cryptography, and side-channel attacks.
Thursday, August 16th, 2023 MAE 126, 11:00 a.m. EST
Zoom Information: Click here
Meeting ID: 925 6035 8822
Passcode: 176358
Congratulations to Dr. Sara Rampazzi and her team composed of lead author Jennifer Sheldon, Weidong Zhu, Dr. Md Jahidul Islam, and FICS Research Director Dr. Kevin Butler, on winning Best Paper at HotStorage 2023 conference for the paper entitled “Deep Note: Can Acoustic Interference Damage the Availability of Hard Disk Storage in Underwater Data Centers?”
Are you planning on attending SIGGRAPH 2023?
If so, check out FICS and PRISM Institute Faculty member Dr. Eakta Jain’s presentation entitled:
Digital Avatars: Risks, Harms, Barriers, Opportunities.
Description: Digital avatars represent us in the Metaverse. Sometimes we want to be represented exactly how we are in real life, sometimes we want to be something or someone different. This workshop will bring together graphics and VR researchers and practitioners together with speakers from usable privacy to discuss digital avatars and risks, harms, barriers, and opportunities for marginalized/vulnerable users.
This is a collaborative research presentation with other PRISM members.
More information here.