Designing and fabricating microchips worldwide is a serious, $350 billion business. But because it is such a huge industry, there are many opportunities for attacks: certain employees along the supply the chain can easily install malicious circuitry in chips if they want to. These harmful circuitries can sabotage various electronics, public infrastructure, health-care devices, etc.
The good news is that the researchers from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering are developing a new, fantastic solution: a chip with an embedded module, as well as an external module. This chip can prove its calculations are correct with the embedded module, and validate those proofs with its external module. In other words, the new chip can check for sabotage, and then, with its external verification unit, validate those calculations.
The new chip is also faster, smaller, and more power-efficient. So, not only will it provide more secure computations and electronics, it will also reduce time, energy, and chip area needed to produce proofs.
Source: NYU Tandon School of Engineering via ScienceDaily (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160823083321.htm)
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