Project summary:

X-ray based physical attacks are an emerging threat to secure circuits: they can be carried out remotely, without contact, and above all while the device is powered off, which makes classic software-based detection and alert mechanisms ineffective. The ANR GALAXI project (Global and Local Advanced Attacks through X-Ray Irradiation), coordinated by TIMA and bringing together CEA- Leti, SIMaP, LCIS, LabHC and Mines Saint-Étienne, studies the effects of X-ray attacks on secure
circuits, alone or combined with other physical vectors (laser, electromagnetic, thermal, side- channel). LCIS co-leads with TIMA the work package dedicated to detection and countermeasures (WP3), in which this PhD is carried out.

Main goals:
This PhD aims at designing robust sensors and countermeasures against X-ray attacks and multimodal
attacks. The work will cover two complementary axes:

-(1) designing and evaluating sensors able to detect X-ray exposure and combined attacks, including while the device is powered off, by exploring
structures sensitive to total ionizing dose (TID) or to laser (PUF-like structures, leakage sensors), together with mechanisms able to record and report an attack that occurred while the device was powered off, exploitable at restart

(2) evaluating existing countermeasures (masking, hiding, redundancy) against these combined attacks, and designing new countermeasures resistant to
transient and permanent effects, prototyped and validated on FPGA.