hot topic: In Hardware We Trust: Challenges and Opportunities of Hardware Security

Innovations in computing technologies continue to impact our daily lives at an increasing pace from smart phone to smart home, office, cities and factories and from autonomous cars and drones to intelligent cloud and energy systems. However, emerging technologies, such as Internet of Things and AI, can benefit people’s lives only when they are secure and trustworthy, posing many security challenges on the design of the adequate computing platforms. In particular, hardware security plays an important role, since hardware is at the heart of any computing platform. Hardware support is used for improving the performance or energy efficiency of systems on the one hand, and for increasing the trustworthiness on the other hand. In contrast to software, hardware is mostly believed to be trustworthy, but today, we know that this assumption is not justified anymore. Researchers in academia and industry have been investigating hardware security from many different attack and defense angles. It is of utmost importance to secure hardware because it is not only the foundation of our computer systems but also a trust anchor that enables protection for modern software.

In this workshop distinguished experts from academia and industry will present their work and insights on various hardware security topics and supporting technologies to secure computing platforms.