A Survey on FPGA Cybersecurity Design Strategies

Abstract

This paper presents a critical literature review on the security aspects of field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices. FPGA devices present unique challenges to cybersecurity through their reconfigurable nature. This paper also pays special attention to emerging system-on-chip (SoC) FPGA devices that incorporate a hard processing system (HPS) on the same die as the FPGA logic. While this incorporation reduces the need for vulnerable external signals, the HPS in SoC FPGA devices adds a level of complexity that is not present for standalone FPGA devices. This added complexity necessarily hands over the task of securing the device to developers. Even with standard security features in place, the HPS might still have unhindered access to the FPGA logic. A single software flaw could open up a breach that might allow an attacker to extract the FPGA’s configuration data. A robust cybersecurity strategy is thus required for developers. As such, this paper aims to provide the groundwork to build a solid threat-based cybersecurity design strategy that is specially adapted to SoC FPGA devices.