Fault Model Analysis of DRAM under Electromagnetic Fault Injection Attack

Abstract

Electromagnetic fault injection (EMFI) attack has posed serious threats to the security of integrated circuits. Memory storing sensitive codes and data has become the first choice of attacking targets. This work performs a thorough characterization of the induced faults and the associated fault model of EMFI attacks on DRAM. Specifically, we firstly carry out a set of experiments to analyse the sensitivity of various types of memory to EMFI. The analysis shows that DRAM is more sensitive to EMFI than EEPROM, Flash, and SRAM in this experiment. Then, we classify the induced faults in DRAM and formulate the fault models. Finally, we find the underlying reasons that explain the observed fault models by circuit-level simulation of DRAM under EMFI. The in-depth understanding of the fault models will guide design of DRAM against EMFI attacks.