The field of hardware security refers to protecting the physical components of a computer. It assumes direct access to the hardware and this field includes anything ranging from managing access control to hardware design. Physical security on your hardware is important, as the hardware can be manipulated by an adversarial. This ranges from plugging a malicious USB into a device to reading information from a monitor screen. It can also be performed more technically by observing power consumption or manipulating input current to inject a fault into the hardware.

image

Keywords

  • Access control - a security technique regulating which parties have access to objects in a network or computer
  • Hardware design - the physical and logical design of the circuits on a computer
  • Hardware security - the vulnerability protection of the physical components on a computer from unauthorised access