What is it about?
We provide a solution to avoid hacking of an electronic device through extracting a physically unclonable signature from any electronic device that has an ADC. By attaching a microphone and measuring the timing between successive audio signals from a speaker, we can identify the device. The measured time is observed to be different for different device due to the inherent difference in the oscillators that are used to measure time. We also can know if the device has been displaced from it's location by measuring the difference between the time of arrival of signals arriving from different speakers. Hence, we are able to uniquely identify a device and whether it has been tampered with or not.
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Why is it important?
Electronic devices are vulnerable to hacking not just through software, but replacement with identical looking malicious clone device. We provide a solution to avoid this through extracting a physically unclonable signature from any electronic device that has an ADC. Usually, PUFs are custom circuits that are included in the device at the time of manufacturing. This requires more investment in R&D and manufacturing complexity. Our solution can make any device with an ADC capable of providing PUFs.
Perspectives
Writing this was a great learning experience. I not only gained the technical knowledge that went into this work but the research methodology - planning, developing custom electronic components, setting up experiments, collecting and interpreting data and the process of writing and publishing a paper. The co-authors were partners as well as mentors to me.
Nithish K Gnani
Indian Institute of Science
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Sensor Identification via Acoustic Physically Unclonable Function, Digital Threats Research and Practice, March 2022, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3488306.
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