Welcome to HINT

Mission:

• Is to develop a solution to implement a common framework for a system’s integrity checking based on Trusted Computing technologies.
• Is to demonstrate the capabilities of the developed technologies on real-life applications.
• Is to prepare the adoption of the proposed technologies by future Common Criteria evaluation schemes.

Motivation:

Modern ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) systems involve complex schemes like in homeland security markets (avionics, critical infrastructures, SCADA systems, cyber security, RFIDs…), embedded systems (health, transport, defence, consumer electronics, telecommunication…), smart cards (bank cards, ID cards, Pay TV cards, transportation, (U) SIM…) and personal identity technologies (passports or travel documents…). The security of such systems, which relies on the authenticity and integrity of the hardware components used to implement them, is continuously challenged by improving attacks. Hence new methods for testing the authenticity & integrity of those hardware devices must be sought.

Physical attacks, based on the passive or active spying of those devices, are ‘proven’ ways of retrieving secret data out of them. Today’s security circuits o er protections against these attacks, but an absolute protection is not possible in practice and the need of extra barriers arises, especially with the growing concerns about the fact that:

• counterfeiting of hardware components is dramatically increasing, with approximately 5-20% of counterfeited components on the market.

• the threat of “Trojans” or hidden functions in Integrated Circuits (IC) is moving from theory to practice.

The HINT project addresses these new challenges by proposing the development of novel technologies to verify that a system is a genuine and non-modified one. Those technologies shall help to support assurance of authenticity and integrity of the hardware components used in a given system.