It is a great pleasure for me to write this foreword about a book that comes out
of one of the first research projects funded by ANR, the French National Research
Agency. ANR was established by the French government in 2005 to fund research
projects, based on competitive schemes giving researchers the best opportunities to
realize their projects and paving the way for groundbreaking new knowledge. The
role of the Agency is to bring more flexibility to the French research system, foster
new dynamics and devise cutting edge-strategies for acquiring new expertise.
By identifying priority areas and fostering publicprivate collaborations, the ANR
also aims at enhancing the general level of competitiveness of both the French research
system and the French economy. The first calls for proposal were launched in
early 2005, selection by peer review took place, and ICTER (Information Integrity
and Confidentiality for Reconfigurable Technologies), was one of the first selected
projects which addressed the issue of security in digital circuits and systems. Since
then, many other projects have been submitted to and funded by ANR on closely
related topics, this is certainly another measure of the success of ICTER. A few
years later, the project results are found to be quite impressive, among which this
book is clearly a significant outcome. It will contribute to a better understanding of
technologies related to the digital security of electronic devices, which are at the
core of information technology as they are key to the trust that we can put in our
digital systems.Writing a book of this magnitude is a significant effort; I wish much
success to it and congratulate the authors for their achievement. I see it as another
proof for ANR of the dynamism of the French research.
In Security Trends for FPGA's the authors present an analysis of current threats against embedded systems and especially FPGAs. They discuss about requirements according to the FIPS standard in order to build a secure system. This point is of paramount importance as it guarantees the level of security of a system. Also highlighted are current vulnerabilities of FPGAs at all the levels of the security pyramid. It is essential from a design point of view to be aware of all the levels in order to provide a comprehensive solution. The strength of a system is defined by its weakest point; there is no reason to enhance other protection means, if the weakest point remains untreated. Many severe attacks have considered this weakness in order not to face brute force attack complexity. Several solutions are proposed in Security Trends for FPGA's especially at the logical, architecture and system levels in order to provide a global solution.