PUF-Based Secure Chaotic Random Number Generator Design Methodology

Pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs) play a pivotal role in generating key sequences of cryptographic protocols. Among different schemes, a simple chaotic PRNG (CPRNG) exhibits the property of being extremely sensitive to the initial seed and, hence, unpredictable. However, CPRNG is vulnerable if the initial seed is compromised. In this brief, we propose a novel physical unclonable function-based CPRNG (PUF-CPRNG), where the initial seed is secured by generating it from PUF. Furthermore, the proposed PUF-CPRNG includes dynamic refreshing logic to ensure that the random numbers generated are nonperiodic. To further secure the PUF-CPRNG, the feedback values of CPRNG are fed from PUF. An hardware architecture for the proposed methodology has been designed, and the proof of concept implementation was carried out using Xilinx Virtex-7 field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The proposed PUF-CPRNG passes the statistical test NIST 800-22, ENT, and correlation analysis.