The Anatomy of Hardware Reverse Engineering: An Exploration of Human Factors during Problem Solving-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

The Anatomy of Hardware Reverse Engineering: An Exploration of Human Factors during Problem Solving

Published:2022-12-22 Issue: Volume: Page:
ISSN:1073-0516
Container-title:ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
language:en
Short-container-title:ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact.

Author:

Wiesen Carina¹,Becker Steffen¹,Walendy René¹,Paar Christof²,Rummel Nikol³

Affiliation:

1. Ruhr University Bochum, Germany and Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, Germany

2. Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, Germany

3. Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Abstract

Understanding of microchips, known as Hardware Reverse Engineering (HRE), is driven by analysts’ problem solving. This work sheds light on these hitherto poorly understood problem-solving processes. We propose a methodology addressing the problem of HRE experts being unavailable for research. We developed a training enabling students to acquire intermediate levels of HRE expertise. Besides one expert, we recruited eight top-performing students from this training for our exploratory study. All participants completed a realistic HRE task involving the removal of a copyright protection mechanism from a hardware circuit. We analyzed 2445 log entries by applying an iterative open coding and developed a detailed hierarchical problem-solving model. Our exploration yielded insights into problem-solving strategies and revealed that two intermediates solved the task with a comparable solution time to the expert. We discuss that HRE problem solving may be a function of both expertise and cognitive abilities, and outline ideas for novel countermeasures.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Subject

Human-Computer Interaction

Link

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3577198

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