Incremental Encryption for Network-on-Chip Security
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Solution Overview
Problem
Network-on-chip (NoC) security in System-on-chip (SoC) designs faces challenges due to high energy and performance overhead from traditional encryption methods, which are resource-constrained and vulnerable to security attacks, especially given the complexity of modern SoC architectures.
Innovation Solution
A lightweight incremental encryption scheme is implemented using incremental cryptography, which exploits NoC traffic characteristics to minimize encryption time and area overhead by reusing previously encrypted/decrypted data and only updating changed blocks, thereby reducing the computational effort required for encryption and decryption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional packet encryption is used to secure NoC communication, then security against attacks is improved, but energy consumption and performance overhead increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The encryption process is segmented into two parts: a one-time full encryption of the original packet, and subsequent incremental updates only for modified blocks. This segmentation allows the system to achieve continuous security protection while avoiding redundant encryption of unchanged data, thereby reducing energy overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary full encryption of the packet once, establishing a baseline encrypted version. This preliminary action enables subsequent incremental updates without repeating the full encryption process, significantly reducing ongoing energy consumption while maintaining security.
2Reliability
If traditional packet encryption is used to secure NoC communication, then security against attacks is improved, but performance overhead increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The encryption workload is segmented from a complete re-encryption of all packets to selective encryption of only modified blocks. This segmentation reduces the computational burden and processing time, thereby improving performance while maintaining security guarantees.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the encryption parameter from encrypting the entire packet every time to encrypting only the differential blocks. This parameter change in the encryption scope directly reduces performance overhead while preserving security through the incremental update mechanism.
3Area of stationary object
If resource-constrained SoC designs are used, then area and power efficiency are improved, but security protection capability is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies partial encryption action by encrypting only the necessary modified blocks rather than entire packets. This partial action approach provides adequate security protection for the changed portions while minimizing the hardware resources required, making it suitable for resource-constrained SoC designs.
Data Source
AI summary
Various examples are provided related to software and hardware architectures that enable a lightweight incremental encryption scheme that is implemented on a System-on-chip (SoC) resource such as a network interface. In one example, among others, a method for incremental encryption includes obtaining, by a network interface (NI) of a sender intellectual property (IP) core in a network-on-chip (NoC) based system-on-chip (SoC) architecture, a payload for communication to a receiver intellectual property (IP) core; identifying, by the NI, one or more different blocks between the payload and a payload of a previous packet communicated between the sender IP core and the receiver IP core; and encrypting, by the NI, the one or more different blocks to create encrypted blocks of an encrypted payload.