Spying Across Chiplets: Side-Channel Attacks in 2.5/3D Integrated Systems
Giorgio Di Natale, Christelle Rabache, Pierre-Louis Hellier, Florence Podevin, Sylvain Bourdel + 2 more
TLDR
This paper demonstrates side-channel attacks across chiplets in 2.5/3D integrated systems by repurposing communication-oriented chiplets as observation platforms.
Key contributions
- Demonstrates cross-chiplet side-channel attacks in 2.5/3D integrated systems.
- Proposes repurposing communication-oriented chiplets as internal observation platforms.
- Formalizes the threat model and attack principle for chiplet-to-chiplet spying.
- Experimentally validates information leakage from victim chiplets via communication interfaces.
Why it matters
As chiplet-based systems become prevalent, understanding their new attack surfaces is crucial. This research highlights a novel and practical side-channel vulnerability, urging developers to consider inter-chiplet security in future designs. It paves the way for more secure advanced packaging.
Original Abstract
Advanced packaging and chiplet-based integration are increasingly adopted to build complex heterogeneous systems beyond the limits of monolithic scaling. While these architectures offer major benefits in terms of modularity, yield, and performance, they also introduce new physical attack surfaces. In this paper, we show that side-channel attacks can be mounted across chiplets within the same package or stack. Our key idea is that a communication-oriented chiplet, originally intended to interact with the external environment through an antenna, an RFID-like element, or another contactless coupling structure, can be repurposed as an internal observation platform. We formalize this threat through a realistic adversary model, describe the corresponding attack principle, and experimentally assess its feasibility. The obtained results demonstrate that signals captured through such a communication-oriented interface can reveal information correlated with the activity of a neighboring victim chiplet.
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