Unified Countermeasures against Physical Attacks in Internet of Things - A survey

The Internet of Things (IoT) impacts how we interact with the world around us for good. While IoT benefits are undeniable, it is a double-edged sword. The security aspect is the major concern in the IoT realm, especially side-channel attacks since there are abundant channels due to physical effects. IoT devices have been widely used in many fields of production and social living, such as healthcare, energy and industrial automation and military application, to name a few. Much research focuses on software, network, and cloud security; however, hardware security in these devices has been overlooked. The low-power, heterogeneous and resource-constrained nature of IoT devices makes incorporating security features extremely challenging. Conventional security measures, such as encryption, are infeasible for deployment under such constraints. This survey paper discusses the existing countermeasures for isolated side-channel attacks (SCA) and then dives into unified countermeasures that benefit IoT devices to address the area footprint and power constraints. Further, to defeat the IoT system from the advanced SCA, we proposed to use 3D integration as an IoT platform. 3D technology provides various advantages such as heterogeneous integration, split manufacturing, disparate technologies for IoT like MEMS sensors, etc., making 3D integration the best choice for IoT platforms.