X-Ray Fault Injection: Reviewing Defensive Approaches from a Security Perspective

Abstract

With the emergence of a novel fault injection technique based on nanofocused X-Ray beams, these attacks have been proven feasible even when using simple laboratory X-Ray sources. X-Rays can induce parametric shifts in MOS components, mostly at the level of oxides: if properly controlled, these shifts lead to reversible stuck-at faults. It is therefore established that X-Rays can indeed be considered a threat that needs to be addressed in the future when designing secure circuits. In this paper, we discuss how countermeasures issued from the state of the art can be exploited to mitigate or resist against this novel attack.