An RTOS-based Fault Injection Simulator for Embedded Processors

Evaluating embedded systems vulnerability to faults injection attacks has gained importance in recent years due to the rising threats they bring to chips security. The task is particularly important for micro-controllers since they have lower resistance to fault attacks compared to hardware-based cryptosystems. This paper reviews recent embedded fault injection simulators from literature and presents an embedded high-level fault injection mechanism based on a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS). The approach aims to be architecture-independent and portable to 32-bit microcontrollers and embedded processors. The proposed mechanism, primarily targets realistic fault attack scenarios on memory locations, is adapted to timed and event-based fault injection. A Differential Fault Attack (DFA) was mounted on a popular ARM-based micro-controller running FreeRTOS to illustrate the proposed mechanism. The aim is also to bridge the embedded fault injection simulation mechanism efficiently to a computerbased cryptanalysis and to highlight the importance of physically protecting the memory and integrating data-specific countermeasures. Keywords—Cryptography; DFA; Fault Injection; Simulator; RTOS; ARM; Microcontroller; MATLAB