There’s a new program at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) and their call for projects was recently announced. First, here’s a description of the program in a May 30, 2019 news item on Nanowerk,

Today’s societies critically depend on electronic systems. Past spectacular cyber-attacks have clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of existing systems and the need to prevent such attacks in the future. The majority of available cyber-defenses concentrate on protecting the software part of electronic systems or their communication interfaces.

However, manufacturing technology advancements and the increasing hardware complexity provide a large number of challenges so that the focus of attackers has shifted towards the hardware level. We saw already evidence for powerful and successful hardware-level attacks, including Rowhammer, Meltdown and Spectre.

These attacks happened on products built using state-of-the-art microelectronic technology, however, we are facing completely new security challenges due to the ongoing transition to radically new types of nanoelectronic devices, such as memristors, spintronics, or carbon nanotubes and graphene based transistors.

The use of such emerging nanotechnologies is inevitable to address the key challenges related to energy efficiency, computing power and performance. Therefore, the entire industry, are switching to emerging nano-electronics alongside scaled CMOS technologies in heterogeneous integrated systems.

These technologies come with new properties and also facilitate the development of radically different computer architectures. The new technologies and architectures provide new opportunities for achieving security targets, but also raise questions about their vulnerabilities to new types of hardware attacks.

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A May 28, 2019 University of Stuttgart press release provides more information about the program and the call for projects,

Whether it’s cars, industrial plants or the government network, spectacular cyber attacks over the past few months have shown how vulnerable modern electronic systems are. The aim of the new Priority Program “Nano Security”, which is coordinated by the University of Stuttgart, is protecting you and preventing the cyber attacks of the future. The program, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), emphasizes making the hardware into a reliable foundation of a system or a layer of security.

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The challenges of nanoelectronics

Completely new challenges also emerge as a result of the switch to radically new nanoelectronic components, which for example are used to master the challenges of the future in terms of energy efficiency, computing power and secure data transmission. For example, memristors (components which are not just used to store information but also function as logic modules), the spintronics, which exploit quantum-mechanical effects, or carbon nanotubes.

The new technologies, as well as the fundamentally different computer architecture associated with them, offer new opportunities for cryptographic primitives in order to achieve an even more secure data transmission. However, they also raise questions about their vulnerability to new types of hardware attacks.

The problem is part of the solution

In this context, a better understanding should be developed of what consequences the new nanoelectronic technologies have for the security of circuits and systems as part of the new Priority Program. Here, the hardware is not just thought of as part of the problem but also as an important and necessary part of the solution to security problems. The starting points here for example are the hardware-based generation of cryptographic keys, the secure storage and processing of sensitive data, and the isolation of system components which is guaranteed by the hardware. Lastly, it should be ensured that an attack cannot be spread further by the system.

In this process, the scientists want to assess the possible security risks and weaknesses which stem from the new type of nanoelectronics. Furthermore, they want to develop innovative approaches for system security which are based on nanoelectronics as a security anchor.

The Priority Program promotes cooperation between scientists, who develop innovative security solutions for the computer systems of the future on different levels of abstraction. Likewise, it makes methods available to system designers to keep ahead in the race between attackers and security measures over the next few decades.

The call has started

The DFG Priority Program “Nano Security. From Nano-Electronics to Secure Systems“ (SPP 2253) is scheduled to last for a period of six years. The call for projects for the first three-year funding period was advertised a few days ago, and the first projects are set to start at the beginning of 2020.

For more information go to the Nano Security: From Nano-Electronics to Secure Systems webpage on the University of Stuttgart website.