A survey of hardware Trojan threat and defense

Hardware Trojans (HTs) can be implanted in security-weak parts of a chip with various means to steal the internal sensitive data or modify original functionality, which may lead to huge economic losses and great harm to society. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the specific HT threats existing in the whole life cycle of integrated circuits (ICs), and perform protection against hardware Trojans. In this paper, we elaborate an IC market model to illustrate the potential HT threats faced by the parties involved in the model. Then we categorize the recent research advances in the countermeasures against HT attacks. Finally, the challenges and prospects for HT defense are illuminated.