Hardware Trojans – A Systemic Threat

Shield, J., Hopkins, B., Beaumont, M. and North. C

Hardware trojans are a systemic threat that can impact the operations and infrastructure of corporations and government organisations. In this paper, we evaluate a credible and organisation-wide hardware trojan threat from compromised network cards. Our research examines the systemic threat of hardware trojans with an actual hardware trojan implementation to evaluate the impact. Our hardware trojan can degrade network services inside a corporate network, controllable from outside the network. An external activation mechanism is used to activate the trojan; the implementation bypasses data encryption, firewall packet inspection, and is agnostic to software protection and the operating system.

Cite as: Shield, J., Hopkins, B., Beaumont, M. and North. C (2015). Hardware Trojans – A Systemic Threat. In Proc. 13th Australasian Information Security Conference (AISC 2015) Sydney, Australia. CRPIT, 161. Welch, I. and Yi, X. Eds., ACS. 45-51

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