A team of researchers from the Institute of Microelectronics of Seville (IMSE-CNM) has developed a method that gives digital devices an identity. It uses acousto-optical systems and can prevent cyberattacks carried out by Artificial Intelligence and quantum technologies.
This research aims to ‘fingerprint’ digital devices in order to establish secure identification mechanisms and prevent cyber-attacks, and would be applied to photonic devices.
Advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing make it necessary to strengthen current cybersecurity mechanisms to prevent potential cases of identity theft, information theft, or unauthorised access to private communication networks. To this end, it is essential to identify each digital device unambiguously. However, this is no easy task when millions of copies of the same mobile phone model are currently being produced.
Researchers of the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Sevilla (IMSE-CNM) is working towards this goal as part of the EU-funded SQPRIM (Secure Post-Quantum Cryptographic Primitives) project. The project is aimed to provide digital devices with ‘fingerprints’ in order to establish secure identification mechanisms and prevent cyber-attacks. To this end, research is focus on obtaining PUFs, which are physical elements that are impossible to clone due to their high structural complexity.
Previous research in this area has used the small variations that occur during the chip manufacturing process, at the nanometre scale (less than 0.000001 millimetres), to differentiate between copies of the same device. However, advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing are expected to make it possible to virtually clone these identifiers without needing to physically access the chip. Now, Researchers at IMSE-CNM are now exploring a photonic technology-based method that increases the complexity of these fingerprints, making them impossible to clone.
This technology makes it possible to miniaturise security solutions and protect the most vulnerable elements, such as the devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT)
The new method uses tiny particles to split light into multiple beams and to send each beam in a different direction. This creates an unpredictable result, as the particle distribution is impossible to replicate, ensuring that no two structures are identical. Additionally, the method incorporates sound to alter the particle arrangement, generating new digital signatures and preventing identity compromise in the event of a cyber-attack. This approach is possible thanks to the materials’ acousto-optical properties, which allow the interaction between light and sound.
This method is designed to be implemented in photonic chips, devices that, unlike electronic chips, work with photons (light) instead of electrons. This technology makes it possible to miniaturise security solutions and protect the most vulnerable elements, such as the devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT), i.e. household equipment, medical devices and all the individual elements of smart systems.
This development has been carried out in the framework of the SQPRIM (Secure Post-Quantum Cryptographic Primitives) project, funded by the European Union through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA-PF-2022) under Funding Agreement number 101105985. The project is carried out at the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Sevilla, IMSE-CNM, a joint CSIC-University of Seville centre, by researchers Piedad Brox and David Martín Sánchez.
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José Andrés Espino
Vicepresidencia de Innovación y Transferencia