Vulnerabilities
Hardware Trojan
Also known as: Silicon Trojan, Chip-level Trojan
Definition
A malicious modification of an integrated circuit, inserted during design or fabrication, that triggers covert behaviour such as data leakage or denial of service.
Examples
- A rogue IP core that leaks an AES key over an unused JTAG pin when a magic input is observed.
- A counterfeit microcontroller whose RNG quietly produces predictable values.
Related terms
Supply Chain Attack
An attack that compromises a trusted third-party software, hardware, or service provider in order to reach its downstream customers.
Fault Injection
A class of physical or logical attacks that deliberately induce abnormal conditions in hardware or software to bypass security checks or leak secrets.
Side-Channel Attack
An attack that recovers secrets from a system by observing physical or implementation characteristics — timing, power, electromagnetic emissions, caches, acoustic signals — rather than logical flaws.
Backdoor
A covert mechanism that bypasses normal authentication or access controls to give an attacker future entry to a system.
Firmware Malware
Malicious code that lives in device firmware — BIOS/UEFI, network cards, drives, or peripherals — surviving OS reinstalls and most endpoint defences.