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Scott Best at Hardwear USA 2024

Scott Best



State-of-the-Art Anti-Counterfeiting: Attacks and Countermeasures






Talk Title:

State-of-the-Art Anti-Counterfeiting: Attacks and Countermeasures

Abstract:

In this presentation, Scott will discuss the move/countermove nature of anti-counterfeiting efforts in modern semiconductors – how new countermeasures require deployment as soon as new attack methodologies become commercially viable. The talk will discuss in detail the most effective options to both reverse-engineering efforts as well as “forward-engineering” efforts, including specific physical-attack techniques (e.g., invasive, non-invasive, etc.) and their countermeasures, but also meta-level attacks such as basic theft and remanufacturing (along with their state-of-the-art protection mechanisms).


It is the goal of this presentation to raise the level of understanding for both the reverse and forward engineering communities about the nature and degree of attacks which should absolutely be considered “in scope” for any emerging products and their resultant impact on revenue generation, brand protection, user safety, or national security.


Speaker Bio:

Scott Best joined Rambus in 1998, and while serving in many and varied technical roles, has somewhat by accident become one of the most prolific inventors in the company’s history, a named inventor on over 250 patents worldwide. In his initial role with Rambus, he worked as a mixed-signal circuit designer on high-speed memory PHY programs. Those efforts culminated in 2006 with the debut of the CELL microprocessor, the CPU within the PlayStation 3 gaming platform. For the next eight years, he worked in the Memory Architecture group with a focus on advanced 3D and 2.5D high-performance memory systems. This group was the genesis of Rambus Labs where he continued to work until 2014. In 2015, he transitioned to the then recently acquired Cryptography Research team, first in a technical role on anti-counterfeiting engineering and later as that team’s product manager. His current focus is the director of anti-tamper technology development as well as business-line manager for silicon security products for U.S. Defense. Scott holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. He is a husband, a father and skeptical technophile who lives and works in Palo Alto, California.