Open-Source NoC-Based Many-Core for Evaluating Hardware Trojan Detection Methods

In many-cores based on Network-on-Chip (NoC), several applications execute simultaneously, sharing computation, communication and memory resources. This resource sharing leads to security and trust problems. Hardware Trojans (HTs) may steal sensitive information, degrade system performance, and in extreme cases, induce physical damages. Methods available in the literature to prevent attacks include firewalls, denial-of-service detection, dedicated routing algorithms, cryptography, task migration, and secure zones. The goal of this paper is to add an HT in an NoC, able to execute three types of attacks: packet duplication, block applications, and misrouting. The paper qualitatively evaluates the attacks' effect against methods available in the literature, and its effects showed in an NoC-based many-core. The resulting system is an open-source NoC-based many-core for researchers to evaluate new methods against HT attacks.