Protecting FPGA-based Partially Reconfigurable Embedded Systems and IP Cores from Remote Update

Abstract

Intellectual Property (IP) core remote update via the Internet is an advantage of FPGA-based devices. Whereby the system designer or user can change or renew a part of his equipment. However, the problem of communication in an untrusted environment can lead to significant damage: The risks for the IP cores of designers or damaging devices or losing the properties of the user. There have been already many proposals to overcome these problems, for example, using symmetric encryption techniques for bitstream, bitstream version to prevent replay attacks. This paper presents a framework, which include a protocol and authentication and encryption algorithms for protecting IP cores and partially reconfigurable embedded systems based on FPGA. Experimental results and analysis show that the proposed technique reduces resource overhead, increase the flexibility of the system, and it is robust against attacks.