Dennis Gnad

Dr.-Ing. Dennis R. E. Gnad

  • Postdoctoral Researcher
  • Dependable Computing

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
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.
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., Meschkov, 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.