Hardware Trojan Detection and Diagnosis through Synthesis and Validation using Game Theory

Outsourcing Integrated Circuits(ICs) pave the way for including malicious circuits commonly known as Hardware Trojans. Trojans can be divided into functional and parametric Trojans. Trojans of the first kind are made by adding or removing gates to or from the golden reference design. Trojans of the following type, the golden circuit is modified by decreasing connecting wire’s thickness, exposing the chip to radiation, etc. Hardware Trojan detection schemes can be broadly classified into dynamic and static detection schemes depending on whether or not the input stimulus is applied. The proposed method aims to detect functional Trojans using the static detection method. The work proposes a generic, scalable Trojan detection method. The defender does not have the luxury of knowing the type of Trojan the circuit is infected with, making it difficult for accurate detection. In addition, the proposed method does not require propagating the Trojan effect on the output, magnifying the Trojan effect, or any other voting or additional algorithms to accurately detect the Trojan as in previous literature. The proposed method analyses synthesis reports for Trojan detection. Game theory, in addition, aids the defender in optimal decision-making. The proposed method has been evaluated on ISCAS’85 and ISCAS’89 circuits. The proffered method detects various types of Trojans of varying complexities in less time and with 100% accuracy.