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 | |
|---|---|
| V Meyers, M Hefenbrock, D Gnad, M Tahoori Leveraging Neural Trojan Side-Channels for Output Exfiltration in Cryptography 9 (1), DOI, PDF, Jan 2025. | |
| Jayeeta Chaudhuri; Hassan Nassar; Dennis R.E. Gnad; Jörg Henkel; Mehdi B. Tahoori; Krishnendu Chakrabarty Hacking the Fabric: Targeting Partial Reconfiguration for Fault Injection in FPGA Fabrics in IEEE 33rd Asian Test Symposium (ATS), DOI, PDF, Dec 2024. | |
| Hassan Nassar, Jonas Krautter, Lars Bauer, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi B. Tahoori, Jörg Henkel Meta-Scanner: Detecting Fault Attacks via Scanning FPGA Designs Metadata in IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (Volume 43, Issue 11), DOI, PDF, Nov 2024. | |
| Vincent Meyers, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi Tahoori Active and Passive Physical Attacks on Neural Network Accelerators in IEEE Design & Test (Volume 40, Issue 5), DOI, PDF, Oct 2023. | |
| 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. | |
| Ahmet Turan Erozan; Michael Hefenbrock; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Michael Beigl; Jasmin Aghassi-Hagmann; Mehdi B. Tahoori
Counterfeit Detection and Prevention in Additive Manufacturing based on Unique Identification of Optical Fingerprints of Printed Structures in IEEE Access, DOI, PDF, Sep 2022. | |
| Jonas Krautter; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Mehdi B. Tahoori Remote Fault Attacks in Multi-Tenant Cloud FPGAs in IEEE Design & Test (Volume 39, Issue 4), DOI, PDF, Aug 2022. (Revised Publication for Top Picks in Hardware Security 2020) | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad, Cong Dang Khoa Nguyen, Syed Hashim Gillani, Mehdi B. Tahoori Voltage-Based Covert Channels Using FPGAs ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES, Volume 26, Issue 6), DOI, PDF, Nov 2021. | |
| Falk Schellenberg; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Amir Moradi; Mehdi B. Tahoori An inside job: Remote power analysis attacks on FPGAs IEEE Design and Test (Volume 28, Issue 3), DOI, PDF, Jun 2021. | |
| Jonas Krautter, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori CPAmap: On the Complexity of Secure FPGA Virtualization, Multi-Tenancy, and Physical Design in IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES, Volume 2020, Issue 3), DOI, PDF, Jun 2020. | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad; Jonas Krautter; Mehdi B. Tahoori; Falk Schellenberg; Amir Moradi Remote Electrical-level Security Threats to Multi-Tenant FPGAs, in IEEE Design & Test (Volume 37, Issue 8), DOI, PDF, Apr 2020. | |
| Jonas Krautter, Dennis R. E. Gnad, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori Mitigating Electrical-Level Attacks towards Secure Multi-Tenant FPGAs in the Cloud in ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (TRETS, Volume 12, Issue 3), DOI, PDF, Sep 2019. | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad, Jonas Krautter, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori Leaky Noise: New Side-Channel Attack Vectors in Mixed-Signal IoT Devices in IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES, Volume 2019, Issue 3), DOI, PDF, May 2019. | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad, Fabian Oboril, Saman Kiamehr, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori An Experimental Evaluation and Analysis of Transient Voltage Fluctuations in FPGAs in IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration Systems (TVLSI, Volume 26, Issue 10), DOI, PDF, Oct 2018. | |
| Jonas Krautter, Dennis R. E. Gnad, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori FPGAhammer: Remote Voltage Fault Attacks on Shared FPGAs, suitable for DFA on AES IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES), DOI, PDF, Aug 2018. CSAW'18 Finalist |
| Conferences | |
|---|---|
| S. Maryam Ghasemi; Jonas Krautter; Tara Gheshlaghi; Sergej Meschkov; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Mehdi B. Tahoori Degradation Monitoring Through Software-controlled On-chip Sensors for RISC-V in IEEE European Test Symposium (ETS), Hague, Netherlands, DOI, PDF, May 2024. | |
| V. Meyers, M. Hefenbrock, M. Sadeghipourrudsari, D. Gnad, M. Tahoori Towards Functional Safety of Neural Network Hardware Accelerators: Concurrent Out-of-Distribution Detection in Hardware Using Power Side-Channel Analysis in Proceedings of the 30th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASPDAC), DOI, PDF, Mar 2025. | |
| Hassan Nassar, Philipp Machauer, Lars Bauer, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori, Jörg Henkel DoS-FPGA: Denial of Service on Cloud FPGAs via Coordinated Power Hammering in ICCAD '24: Proceedings of the 43rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, DOI, PDF, Oct 2024. | |
| Dennis Gnad, Martin Gotthard, Jonas Krautter, Angeliki Kritikakou, Vincent Meyers, Paolo Rech, Josie E Rodriguez Condia, Annachiara Ruospo, Ernesto Sanchez, Fernando Fernandes Dos Santos, Olivier Sentieys, Mehdi Tahoori, Russell Tessier, Marcello Traiola Reliability and Security of AI Hardware in IEEE European Test Symposium (ETS), DOI, PDF, May 2024. | |
| Lilas Alrahis; Hassan Nassar; Jonas Krautter; Dennis Gnad; Lars Bauer; Jörg Henkel MaliGNNoma: GNN-Based Malicious Circuit Classifier for Secure Cloud FPGAs in IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), DOI, PDF, May 2024. | |
| Vincent Meyers, Michael Hefenbrock, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi Tahoori Trained to Leak: Hiding Trojan Side-Channels in Neural Network Weights in IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), DOI, PDF, May 2024. | |
| Hassan Nassar, Philipp Machauer, Dennis R. E. Gnad, Lars Bauer, Mehdi B. Tahoori, Jörg Henkel Covert-Hammer: Coordinating Power-Hammering on Multi-tenant FPGAs via Covert Channels in FPGA '24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on Field Programmable Gate Arrays , DOI, Apr 2024. | |
| Vincent Meyers, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi Tahoori Out-of-Distribution Detection Using Power-Side Channels for Improving Functional Safety of Neural Network FPGA Accelerators in Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE), DOI, PDF, Mar 2024. | |
| S. Maryam Ghasemi; Sergej Meschkov; Jonas Krautter; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Mehdi B. 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, DOI, PDF, Mar 2024. | |
| S. Maryam Ghasemi; Sergej Meschkov; Jonas Krautter; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Mehdi B. Tahoori Enabling In-field Parametric Testing for RISC-V Cores in International Test Conference (ITC), Anaheim, USA, DOI, PDF, Oct 2023. | |
| Vincent Meyers, Michael Hefenbrock, Dennis Gnad, Mehdi Tahoori Remote Identification of Neural Network FPGA Accelerators by Power Fingerprints in 33rd International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL), DOI, PDF, Sep 2023. | |
| N. Muller, S. Meschkov, D. R. E. Gnad, M. B. Tahoori and A. Moradi Automated Masking of FPGA-Mapped Designs in 33rd International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL), Gothenburg, Sweden, DOI, PDF, 04 - 08 Sept 2023. | |
| S. Maryam Ghasemi; Sergej Meschkov; Jonas Krautter; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Mehdi B. 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, DOI, PDF, Jul 2023. | |
| Brojogopal Sapui; Jonas Krautter; Mahta Mayahinia; Atousa Jafari; Dennis Gnad; Sergej Meschkov Power Side-Channel Attacks and Countermeasures on Computation-in-Memory Architectures and Technologies in IEEE European Test Symposium (ETS), DOI, PDF, May 2023. (Best paper nomination) | |
| Lukas Huegle, Martin Gotthard, Vincent Meyers, Jonas Krautter, Dennis RE Gnad, Mehdi B Tahoori Power2Picture: Using Generative CNNs for Input Recovery of Neural Network Accelerators through Power Side-Channels on FPGAs in IEEE 31st Annual International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM), DOI, PDF, May 2023. | |
| Mathieu Gross, Jonas Krautter, Dennis Gnad, Michael Gruber, Georg Sigl, Mehdi B. Tahoori FPGANeedle: Precise Remote Fault Attacks from FPGA to CPU in 28th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC), DOI, PDF, Jan 2023. | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad; Jiaqi Hu; Mehdi B. 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, DOI, PDF, Aug 2022. | |
| 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), DOI, PDF, May 2022. | |
| Jonas Krautter; Mahta Mayahinia; Dennis R.E. Gnad; Mehdi B. Tahoori Data Leakage through Self-Terminated Write Schemes in Memristive Caches in 27th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC), DOI, PDF, Jan 2022. | |
| Hassan Nassar; Hanna AlZughbi; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Lars Bauer; Mehdi B. Tahoori; Jörg Henkel LoopBreaker: Disabling Interconnects to Mitigate Voltage-Based Attacks in Multi-Tenant FPGAs in IEEE/ACM International Conference On Computer Aided Design (ICCAD), DOI, PDF, Nov 2021. | |
| Sergej Meschkov; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Jonas Krautter; Mehdi B. Tahoori Is your secure test infrastructure secure enough? : Attacks based on delay test patterns using transient behavior analysis in IEEE International Test Conference (ITC), DOI, PDF, Oct 2021. | |
| Jonas Krautter; Dennis R. E. Gnad; Mehdi B. Tahoori Remote and Stealthy Fault Attacks on Virtualized FPGAs in Proceedings of Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE), DOI, PDF, Feb 2021. | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad; Vincent Meyers; Nguyen Minh Dang; Falk Schellenberg; Amir Moradi; Mehdi B. Tahoori Stealthy Logic Misuse for Power Analysis Attacks in Multi-Tenant FPGAs in Proceedings of Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE), DOI, PDF, Feb 2021. Invited Paper | |
| Jonas Krautter; Dennis R.E. Gnad; Falk Schellenberg; Amir Moradi; Mehdi B. Tahoori Active Fences against Voltage-based Side Channels in Multi-Tenant FPGAs in IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), DOI, PDF, Nov 2019. | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad, Sascha Rapp, Jonas Krautter, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori Checking for Electrical Level Security Threats in Bitstreams for Multi-Tenant FPGAs in International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (FPT), DOI, PDF, Dec 2018. | |
| Falk Schellenberg, Dennis R. E. Gnad, Amir Moradi, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori Remote Inter-Chip Power Analysis Side-Channel Attacks at Board-Level in IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), DOI, PDF, Nov 2018. | |
| Falk Schellenberg, Dennis R. E. Gnad, Amir Moradi, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori An Inside Job: Remote Power Analysis Attacks on FPGAs in Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE), DOI, PDF, Mar 2018. (Best Paper Candidate, Top Picks in Hardware Security 2019) | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad, Fabian Oboril, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori Voltage Drop-based Fault Attacks on FPGAs using Valid Bitstreams in 27th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL), DOI, PDF, Sep 2017. Best Paper Award | |
| Dennis R. E. Gnad, Fabian Oboril, Saman Kiamehr, Mehdi Baradaran Tahoori Analysis of Transient Voltage Fluctuations in FPGAs in International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (FPT), DOI, PDF, Dec 2016. Best Paper Candidate |
| arXiv | |
|---|---|
| Jayeeta Chaudhuri, Hassan Nassar, Dennis R.E. Gnad, Jorg Henkel, Mehdi B. Tahoori, Krishnendu Chakrabarty FLARE: Fault Attack Leveraging Address Reconfiguration Exploits in Multi-Tenant FPGAs in arXiv, DOI, PDF, Feb 2025. |
| 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. |