Short Bio

Dennis Rolf Engelbert Gnad received his B.Eng. degree in Computer Engineering from Hochschule Pforzheim University, Germany in 2011, where he did his Bachelor Thesis in Cooperation with Texas Instruments Germany. In 2015, he received his M.Sc. in Computer Science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. In his Master Thesis he worked with the ITEC/CES group of Prof. Henkel with Dr. Shafique. In 2015, he became a PhD student at the ITEC/CDNC group of Prof. Mehdi Tahoori and later received his PhD degree (Dr.-Ing.) in 2020 with distinction (summa cum laude), and the dissertation "Remote Attacks on FPGA Hardware". His current research interests are in hardware security, primarily focussed on FPGA-based systems.

Academic Services

Reviewed for:
- IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC)
- Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE)
- IEEE Design & Test
- IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC)
- ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (TRETS)
- MDPI Cryptography
- MDPI Electronics
Local Arrangements Chair for European Test Symposium (ETS) 2019, Baden-Baden, Germany.
Program Committee Member for 29th Reconfigurable Architectures Workshop (RAW), 2022.

Advised or Supervised Past and Current Students:

Jonas Krautter: Master Thesis: "On-Chip Fault Attack Analysis using shared FPGA resources"; SHK Side-Channels; became PhD Student
Hashim Syed Gillani: SHK FPGA Voltage Drop Sensor Calibration
Luis Piepka: SHK FPGA Test Automation and Soft-Core Experiments
Yiwei Hao: SHK FPGA Tests and Measurement
Sascha Rapp: Bachelor Thesis: "Detecting malicious combinational cycles in FPGA bitstreams"
Cong Dang Khoa Nguyen: Bachelor Thesis: "Voltage-based Covert Channel Communication between logically separated IP Cores in FPGAs"
Xiang Chen: SHK Microcontroller programming and security
Uzair Abbas: SHK FPGA Sensors / Reconfiguration / Security
Rami Aqqad: SHK FPGA Sensors / Reconfiguration / Security
Haseeb Nawaz: SHK FPGA Sensors
Grégoire Barbon: Internship FPGA Security
Antoine Heraud: Internship FPGA and Circuit-Level Security
Moritz Hauer: SHK FPGA Security
Sergej Meschkov: Master Thesis: "Analyzing Circuit Glitches for Side-Channel Information"; SHK Side-Channels; became PhD Student
Vincent Meyers: Master Thesis and SHK in the subject area of FPGA and Accelerator Security
Nguyen Minh Dang: Master Thesis and SHK in the subject area of FPGA, Accelerator, and Circuit-Level Security
Kai Schoos: Master Thesis and SHK IoT/Circuit-Level Security
Jiaqi Hu: Master Thesis in the subject area of Circuit-Level and FPGA Security
Lukas Hügle: Master Thesis on Neural Network Hardware Security
Patrick Röper: Bachelor Thesis and SHK on Fault Attack Security

Publications

Journals
S. Meschkov, D. R. E. Gnad, J. Krautter and M. B. Tahoori New Approaches of Side-Channel Attacks Based on Chip Testing Methods in IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (Volume 42, Issue 5), DOI, PDF, 2023.
Schoos, K., Meschkov, S., Tahoori, M. B., & Gnad, D. R. E. JitSCA: Jitter-based Side-Channel Analysis in Picoscale Resolution in IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (Volume 2023, Issue 3), DOI, PDF, 2023.
Vincent Meyers, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi Tahoori Active and Passive Physical Attacks on Neural Network Accelerators in IEEE Design & Test, 2023.
A. T. Erozan, M. Hefenbrock, D. Gnad, M. Beigl, J. Aghassi-Hagmann, M. Tahoori Counterfeit Detection and Prevention in Additive Manufacturing based on Unique Identification of Optical Fingerprints of Printed Structures in IEEE Access, 2022.
J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad, M. B. Tahoori Remote Fault Attacks in Multi-Tenant Cloud FPGAs in IEEE Design & Test, 2022. (Revised Publication for Top Picks in Hardware Security 2020)
F Schellenberg, DRE Gnad, A Moradi, MB Tahoori An inside job: Remote power analysis attacks on FPGAs IEEE Design and Test, 2021.
D. RE. Gnad, C. D. K. Nguyen, S. H. Gillani, M. B. Tahoori Voltage-Based Covert Channels Using FPGAs ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES), 2021.
D. R. E. Gnad, F. Schellenberg, J. Krautter, A. Moradi and M. B. Tahoori Remote Electrical-level Security Threats to Multi-Tenant FPGAs, in IEEE Design & Test, 2020.
J. Krautter, D. Gnad, M. Tahoori CPAmap: On the Complexity of Secure FPGA Virtualization, Multi-Tenancy, and Physical Design in IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES), 2020.
J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad, M. B. Tahoori FPGAhammer: Remote Voltage Fault Attacks on Shared FPGAs, suitable for DFA on AES IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES), 2018. CSAW'18 Finalist
D. R. E. Gnad, F. Oboril, S. Kiamehr, M. B. Tahoori An Experimental Evaluation and Analysis of Transient Voltage Fluctuations in FPGAs in IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration Systems (TVLSI), 2018.
J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad, M. B. Tahoori Mitigating Electrical-Level Attacks towards Secure Multi-Tenant FPGAs in the Cloud in ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (TRETS), 2019.
D. R. E. Gnad, J. Krautter, M. B. Tahoori Leaky Noise: New Side-Channel Attack Vectors in Mixed-Signal IoT Devices in IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES), 2019.

Conferences
M. Gross, J. Krautter, D. Gnad, M. Gruber, G. Sigl, M. Tahoori FPGANeedle: Precise Remote Fault Attacks from FPGA to CPU in 28th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC), 2023.
D. Gnad, J. Hu, M. Tahoori Breaking an FPGA-integrated NIST SP 800-193 compliant TRNG Hard-IP core with on-chip voltage-based fault attacks in International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL), United Kingdom, 2022.
J. Krautter, M. Mayahinia, D. R. E. Gnad, M. B. Tahoori Data Leakage through Self-Terminated Write Schemes in Memristive Caches in 27th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC), 2022.
J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad, M. B. Tahoori Remote and Stealthy Fault Attacks on Virtualized FPGAs in Proceedings of Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE), 2021.
D. R. E. Gnad, V. Meyers, N. M. Dang, F. Schellenberg, A. Moradi, M. B. Tahoori Stealthy Logic Misuse for Power Analysis Attacks in Multi-Tenant FPGAs in Proceedings of Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE), 2021. Invited Paper
H. Nassar, H. AlZughbi, D. R. E. Gnad, L. Bauer, M. B. Tahoori, J. Henkel LoopBreaker: Disabling Interconnects to Mitigate Voltage-Based Attacks in Multi-Tenant FPGAs in Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2021.
S. Meschkov, D. R. E. Gnad, J. Krautter, M. B. Tahoori Is your secure test infrastructure secure enough? in IEEE International Test Conference (ITC), 2021.
D.R.E. Gnad, F. Oboril, M.B. Tahoori Voltage Drop-based Fault Attacks on FPGAs using Valid Bitstreams International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL), 2017, Belgium, 2017. Best Paper Award
J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad, F. Schellenberg, A. Moradi, and M. B. Tahoori Active Fences against Voltage-based Side Channels in Multi-Tenant FPGAs in Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), USA, 2019.
D. R. E. Gnad, F. Oboril, S. Kiamehr and M. B. Tahoori Analysis of Transient Voltage Fluctuations in FPGAs in International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (FPT), 2016, China, 2016. Best Paper Candidate
S. M. Ghasemi, S. Meschkov, J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad and M. Tahoori Enabling In-field Parametric Testing for RISC-V Cores in International Test Conference (ITC), Anaheim, USA, 2023.
S. M. Ghasemi, S. Meschkov, J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad and M. Tahoori SLM ISA and Hardware Extensions for RISC-V Processors in IEEE International Symposium on On-Line Testing and Robust System Design (IOLTS), Crete, Greece, 2023.
S. M. Ghasemi, S. Meschkov, J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad and M. Tahoori In-field Detection of Small Delay Defects and Runtime Degradation using On-Chip Sensors in Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference (DATE'24), Valencia, Spain, 2024.
S. M. Ghasemi, J. Krautter, T. Gheshlaghi, S. Meschkov, D. R. E. Gnad and M. Tahoori Degradation Monitoring Through Software-controlled On-chip Sensors for RISC-V in IEEE European Test Symposium (ETS), Hague, Netherlands, 2024.
Sapui, B., Krautter, J., Mayahinia, M., Jafari, A., Gnad D., Meschokov, S., Tahoori, M. B. Power Side-Channel Attacks and Countermeasures on Computation-in-Memory Architectures and Technologies in /2023 IEEE European Test Symposium (ETS)/, 2023. (Best paper nomination)
Vincent Meyers, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi Tahoori Reverse Engineering Neural Network Folding with Remote FPGA Power Analysis in IEEE 30th Annual International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM), 2022.
F. Schellenberg, D. R. E. Gnad, A. Moradi, M. B. Tahoori Remote Inter-Chip Power Analysis Side-Channel Attacks at Board-Level in Proceedings of IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), USA, 2018.
F. Schellenberg, D. R. E. Gnad, A. Moradi, M. B. Tahoori An Inside Job: Remote Power Analysis Attacks on FPGAs in Proceedings of Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE). Germany, 2018. (Best Paper Candidate, Top Picks in Hardware Security 2019)
D. R. E. Gnad, S. Rapp, J. Krautter, and M. B. Tahoori Checking for Electrical Level Security Threats in Bitstreams for Multi-Tenant FPGAs International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (FPT), Japan, 2018.

Other
F. Schellenberg, D. R. E. Gnad, A. Moradi, M. B. Tahoori An Inside Job: Remote Power Analysis Attacks on FPGAs Presentation in the "Top Picks in Hardware Security" Workshop (co-located with ICCAD'19) on this DATE'18 paper, 2019.
D. Gnad, M. Tahoori Security threats in nanoscale FPGA fabric Workshop on SecURity, REliAbiLity, test, prIvacy, Safety and Trust of Future Devices (SURREALIST), Bremen, Germany, May/June 2018.
D. Gnad Seitenkanal-Angriffe innerhalb FPGA-Chips Vortrag auf der GPN18, media.ccc.de, Chaos Computer Club e.V, Karlsruhe, Germany, May 2018.
D. Gnad, S. Ritterbusch FPGA Seitenkanäle Gespräch im Modellansatz Podcast, Folge 177, Fakultät für Mathematik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), 2018.
J. Krautter, D. R. E. Gnad, F. Schellenberg, A. Moradi, M. B. Tahoori Software-based Fault and Power Side-Channel Attacks inside Multi-Tenant FPGAs IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), USA, 2019. Demo Session, (BEST Hardware Demo Award, Third Place)

PhD Thesis
D. R. E. Gnad Remote Attacks on FPGA Hardware Doktorarbeit, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), DOI, PDF, 2020.

Former Publications
D. Gnad, M. Shafique, F. Kriebel, S. Rehman, D. Sun, J. Henkel Hayat: Harnessing Dark Silicon and Variability for Aging Deceleration and Balancing in Proceedings of Design Automation Conference (DAC), USA, 2015.
M. Shafique, D. Gnad, S. Garg, J. Henkel Variability-Aware Dark Silicon Management in On-Chip Many-Core Systems in Proceedings of Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE), France, 2015.