Physically Unclonable Functions

This book discusses the design principles of physically unclonable functions (PUFs) and how these can be employed in hardware-based security applications, in particular, the book provides readers with a comprehensive overview of security threats and existing countermeasures.

Today, embedded systems are used in many security-critical applications, from access control, electronic tickets, sensors, and smart devices (e.g., wearables) to automotive applications and critical infrastructures. These systems are increasingly used to produce and process both security-critical and privacy-sensitive data, which bear many security and privacy risks. Establishing trust in the underlying devices and making them resistant to software and hardware attacks is a fundamental requirement in many applications and a challenging, yet unsolved, task. Solutions solely based on software can never ensure their own integrity and trustworthiness while resource-constraints and economic factors often prevent the integration of sophisticated security hardware and cryptographic co-processors. In this context, Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are an emerging and promising technology to establish trust in embedded systems with minimal hardware requirements.