I-Corps: A device for defensive charging to augment the security of mobile devices

I-Corps：一种防御性充电设备，可增强移动设备的安全性

• 批准号: 2110237
• 负责人: Abdul Serwadda
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Texas Tech University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-03-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2110237&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; device; defensive; charging; augment

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a smart phone charging technology that protects the privacy of users who charge their phones at public charging hubs. By virtue of being public, such hubs are a prime target for tampering by malicious actors who could embed illicit meters that perform power analytics to glean information about keys typed, websites visited, multimedia content consumed, etc. The proposed system mitigates these attacks and may be of significant value to frequent travelers given that they often find themselves having to charge their phones at hubs that are within the jurisdiction of entities that might not be trustworthy. Beyond individual frequent travelers, the proposed technology also may be of value to companies seeking to mitigate the security threat posed by employees who connect to the company network using their phones. As smart phones increasingly become central to activities such as communication, banking, storage of sensitive data, etc., the proposed technology has the potential to significantly augment end-user security.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a defensive charging scheme designed to mitigate power side-channel attacks during the charging process. The hardware form of the proposed technology is a charger or charger add-on that morphs the power drawn by the phone during charging. It consists of a micro-controller and metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) that switch on and off random combinations of resistors while the phone is being charged. The variation in resistance, in turn, produces the effect needed to obfuscate the true footprint of the phone’s power draw. The software form of the solution uses bogus operations (e.g., random image rotations) in the background while the phone is being charged. These operations cause disruptions in computer processing unit (CPU) and memory load needed to obfuscate the phone’s true power draw. The system has been designed to minimize the impact on charging time and the CPU and memory used by the software approach. By virtue of being external to the phone, the hardware option does not consume CPU/memory on the phone. As a software solution, this technology may offer convenience given that it runs automatically during charging and could easily be updated as threats and the defense mechanism evolve.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种智能手机充电技术，保护在公共充电中心给手机充电的用户的隐私。由于是公开的，这样的集线器是恶意行为者篡改的主要目标，他们可以嵌入非法的电表来执行功率分析，以收集输入的密钥、访问的网站、使用的多媒体内容等信息。拟议的系统减轻了这些攻击，并且对于经常旅行的人来说可能具有重要价值，因为他们经常发现自己不得不在可能不值得信任的实体管辖范围内的枢纽为手机充电。除了经常出差的个人，这项拟议中的技术也可能对那些寻求减轻员工使用手机连接公司网络所带来的安全威胁的公司有价值。随着智能手机日益成为通信、银行、敏感数据存储等活动的中心，拟议的技术有可能显著增强最终用户的安全性。这个I-Corps项目是基于防御性充电方案的开发，旨在减轻充电过程中的功率侧信道攻击。所提议的技术的硬件形式是一个充电器或充电器附加组件，可以在充电时改变手机所消耗的能量。它由一个微控制器和金属氧化物半导体场效应晶体管（mosfet）组成，当手机充电时，mosfet可以开关随机组合的电阻。反过来，电阻的变化会产生一种效果，使手机的真实耗电量变得模糊。该解决方案的软件形式在手机充电时在后台使用虚假操作（例如，随机图像旋转）。这些操作会导致计算机处理单元（CPU）和内存负载中断，从而混淆手机的真实功耗。该系统的设计最大限度地减少了对充电时间的影响以及软件方法对CPU和内存的使用。由于硬件选项位于手机外部，因此硬件选项不会消耗手机上的CPU/内存。作为一种软件解决方案，该技术可以在充电过程中自动运行，并且可以随着威胁和防御机制的发展而轻松更新，因此可以提供便利。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。