Design and Evaluation of a Spark Gap Based EM-fault Injection Setup

Abstract

The rapid and widespread deployment of electronic devices operating in the field is bringing security issues into the spotlight. Fault injection, for instance, is a class of attacks that allows adversaries to bypass security-related capabilities by tampering with the normal functioning of a device. In this paper we describe a setup capable of faulting integrated circuits by exposing them to a pulsed magnetic field. The magnetic field is generated by discharging a pulse forming network made from a transmission line over an injection probe. The discharge is triggered by a spark gap based switch. We describe the mechanisms behind the different circuit components and evaluate the performance of the setup in practice. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a spark gap switch is used to build an electromagnetic (EM) pulse fault injection setup.