University of Michigan Lands $3.6m DARPA Grant for Unhackable Hardware

ronjor · Dec 22, 2017

December 21, 2017 22:19 by Paul

The University of Michigan announced that it has received a $3.6 million grant to develop hardware based security features that will make Internet connected systems “unhackable.”
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Alina Brouwer · Dec 22, 2017

This sounds amazing. Unhackable hardware? I am trying to think of what they could be working on. This would get everyone going.

JRViejo · Dec 22, 2017

What’s less clear is how easily the technology could be integrated into modern processors or what impact these rapid-fire data shifts would have on functionality. The DARPA SSITH project (System Security Integrated Through Hardware and Firmware) specifically states that “The strategic challenge for participants in the SSITH program will be to develop new integrated circuit (IC) architectures that lack the current software-accessible points of illicit entry, yet retain the computational functions and high-performance the ICs were designed to deliver.”
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DARPA, University of Michigan Team Up to Build ‘Unhackable’ Chip by Joel Hruska.

RockLobster · Dec 23, 2017

Yeah that's only because they don't want hackers finding the sneaky covert malware the tech corps like to hide in their hardware. Its bad for business when they make that kind of thing public.

guest · Aug 23, 2019

DARPA unveils first SSITH prototype to mitigate hardware flaws
August 23, 2019
https://searchsecurity.techtarget.c...st-SSITH-prototype-to-mitigate-hardware-flaws

DARPA aims to block hardware attacks at the source and reduce the need for software patches and has turned to a new microprocessor design to help achieve that goal.

DARPA first announced the project, dubbed SSITH, in 2017 and Dr. Linton Salmon, program manager in the microsystems technology office at DARPA, presented the project and the first prototype chip at this year's DEF CON event in Las Vegas.
According to Salmon, DARPA has six teams working on 15 different SSITH prototypes using open source RISC-V cores and ranging from low-end IoT devices up to high-end systems.

"The goal of the program is to provide security against hardware vulnerabilities that are exploited through software [and] to increase security throughout the microelectronics enterprise, whether you're talking about small IoT devices or you're talking about a high-performance computing system that costs hundreds of millions of dollars," Salmon said.

The main example of this during Linton's talk was buffer overflow, which Linton said has been a problem for more than 20 years. He said the goal of SSITH would be to block buffer overflow and other hardware attacks at the source and reduce the need for software patches for flaws caused by underlying hardware issue.
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University of Michigan Lands $3.6m DARPA Grant for Unhackable Hardware

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