research-article

Open access

Security of Microfluidic Biochip: Practical Attacks and Countermeasures

Authors:

Seetal Potluri,

Farinaz KoushanfarAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES), Volume 25, Issue 3

Article No.: 27, Pages 1 - 29

https://doi.org/10.1145/3382127

Published: 21 April 2020 Publication History

All formats PDF

Abstract

With the advancement of system miniaturization and automation, Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC) technology has revolutionized traditional experimental procedures. Microfluidic Biochip (MFB) is an emerging branch of LoC with wide medical applications such as DNA sequencing, drug delivery, and point of care diagnostics. Due to the critical usage of MFBs, their security is of great importance. In this article, we exploit the vulnerabilities of two types of MFBs: Flow-based Microfluidic Biochip (FMFB) and Digital Microfluidic Biochip (DMFB). We propose a systematic framework for applying Reverse Engineering (RE) attacks and Hardware Trojan (HT) attacks on MFBs as well as for practical countermeasures against the proposed attacks. We evaluate the attacks and defense on various benchmarks where experimental results prove the effectiveness of our methods. Security metrics are defined to quantify the vulnerability of MFBs. The overhead and performance of the proposed attacks as well as countermeasures are also discussed.

References

[1]

MiniSAT. 2015. In Proc. SAT-05: 8th Int. Conf. on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing. http://minisat.se/MiniSat.html.

[2]

Sk Subidh Ali, Mohamed Ibrahim, Jeyavijayan Rajendran, Ozgur Sinanoglu, and Krishnendu Chakrabarty. 2016. Supply-chain security of digital microfluidic biochips.IEEE Comput. 49, 8 (2016), 36--43.

Digital Library

[3]

Sk Subidh Ali, Mohamed Ibrahim, Ozgur Sinanoglu, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Ramesh Karri. 2015. Security implications of cyberphysical digital microfluidic biochips. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD’15). IEEE Computer Society, 483--486.

Digital Library

[4]

Sk Subidh Ali, Mohamed Ibrahim, Ozgur Sinanoglu, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Ramesh Karri. 2016. Microfluidic encryption of on-chip biochemical assays. In Proceedings of the Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS’16). IEEE, 152--155.

[5]

Sk Subidh Ali, Mohamed Ibrahim, Ozgur Sinanoglu, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Ramesh Karri. 2016. Security assessment of cyberphysical digital microfluidic biochips. IEEE/ACM Trans. Comput. Biol. Bioinf. 13, 3 (2016), 445--458.

Digital Library

[6]

Sukanta Bhattacharjee, Jack Tang, Mohamed Ibrahim, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Ramesh Karri. 2018. Locking of biochemical assays for digital microfluidic biochips. In Proceedings of the IEEE 23rd European Test Symposium (ETS’18). IEEE.

[7]

Swarup Bhunia, Michael S. Hsiao, Mainak Banga, and Seetharam Narasimhan. 2014. Hardware trojan attacks: Threat analysis and countermeasures. Proc. IEEE 102, 8 (2014), 1229--1247.

[8]

Huili Chen, Cheng Fu, Jishen Zhao, and Farinaz Koushanfar. 2019. GenUnlock: An automated genetic algorithm framework for unlocking logic encryption. In Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD’19). IEEE, 1--8.

[9]

Huili Chen, Seetal Potluri, and Farinaz Koushanfar. 2017. BioChipWork: Reverse engineering of microfluidic biochips. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD’17). IEEE, 9--16.

[10]

Trung Anh Dinh, Shigeru Yamashita, and Tsung-Yi Ho. 2015. An optimal pin-count design with logic optimization for digital microfluidic biochips. IEEE Trans. Comput.-aided Des. Integ. Circ. Syst. 34, 4 (2015), 629--641.

Digital Library

[11]

Daniel Grissom. 2014. Design of Topologies for Interpreting Assays on Digital Microfluidic Biochips. Ph.D. Dissertation. UC Riverside.

[12]

Daniel Grissom and Philip Brisk. 2013. A field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip. In Proceedings of the 50th Design Automation Conference. ACM, 46.

Digital Library

[13]

Daniel Grissom, Kenneth O’Neal, Benjamin Preciado, Hiral Patel, Robert Doherty, Nick Liao, and Philip Brisk. 2012. A digital microfluidic biochip synthesis framework. In Proceedings of the IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration of System-on-Chip (VLSI-SOC’12). IEEE, 177--182.

[14]

Daniel T. Grissom, Jeffrey McDaniel, and Philip Brisk. 2014. A low-cost field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip. IEEE Trans. Comput.-aided Des. Integ. Circ. Syst. 33, 11 (2014), 1657--1670.

[15]

Zimu Guo, Jia Di, Mark M. Tehranipoor, and Domenic Forte. 2017. Obfuscation-based protection framework against printed circuit boards unauthorized operation and reverse engineering. ACM Trans. Des. Automat. Electron. Syst. 22, 3 (2017), 54.

Digital Library

[16]

Ching-Wei Hsieh, Zipeng Li, and Tsung-Yi Ho. 2017. Piracy prevention of digital microfluidic biochips. In Proceedings of the Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC’17). IEEE, 512--517.

[17]

Kai Hu. 2015. Optimization, Testing and Design-for-Testability of Flow-Based Microfluidic Biochips. Ph.D. Dissertation. Duke University.

[18]

Kai Hu, Bang-Ning Hsu, Andrew Madison, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Richard Fair. 2013. Fault detection, real-time error recovery, and experimental demonstration for digital microfluidic biochips. In Proceedings of the Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe. EDA Consortium, 559--564.

[19]

Kai Hu, Mohamed Ibrahim, Liji Chen, Zipeng Li, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Richard Fair. 2015. Experimental demonstration of error recovery in an integrated cyberphysical digital-microfluidic platform. In Proceedings of the Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS’15). IEEE, 1--4.

[20]

Kai Hu, Feiqiao Yu, Tsung-Yi Ho, and Krishnendu Chakrabarty. 2014. Testing of flow-based microfluidic biochips: Fault modeling, test generation, and experimental demonstration. IEEE Trans. Comput.-aided Des. Integ. Circ. Syst. 33, 10 (2014), 1463--1475.

[21]

Mohamed Ibrahim and Krishnendu Chakrabarty. 2015. Efficient error recovery in cyberphysical digital-microfluidic biochips. IEEE Trans. Multi-scale Comput. Syst. 1, 1 (2015), 46--58.

[22]

Mohamed Ibrahim, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Kristin Scott. 2017. Synthesis of cyberphysical digital-microfluidic biochips for real-time quantitative analysis. IEEE Trans. Comput.-aided Des. Integ. Circ. Syst. 36, 5 (2017), 733--746.

Digital Library

[23]

Illumina. 2017. BioChip Simulator. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/biochipsimulator/.

[24]

Yan Luo, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Tsung-Yi Ho. 2013. Error recovery in cyberphysical digital microfluidic biochips. IEEE Trans. Comput.-aided Des. Integ. Circ. Syst. 32, 1 (2013), 59--72.

Digital Library

[25]

Lidija Malic, Teodor Veres, and Maryam Tabrizian. 2009. Biochip functionalization using electrowetting-on-dielectric digital microfluidics for surface plasmon resonance imaging detection of DNA hybridization. Biosens. Bioelect. 24, 7 (2009), 2218--2224.

[26]

Microfluidic Innovations LLC. 2017. Thin film based microfluidic devices. Microfluidic Innovation LLC. https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/13282.

[27]

Wajid Hassan Minhass, Paul Pop, and Jan Madsen. 2011. System-level modeling and synthesis of flow-based microfluidic biochips. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Compilers, Architectures and Synthesis for Embedded Systems. ACM, 225--234.

Digital Library

[28]

T. Nguyen, S. Ahrar, P. Duncan, and E. Hui. 2011. Microfluidic finite state machine for autonomous control of integrated fluid networks. Proc. Micro. Total Anal. Syst. 2 (2011), 741--743.

[29]

P. Pop, W. H. Minhass, and J. Madsen. 2016. Microfluidic Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI): Modeling, Simulation, Testing, Compilation and Physical Synthesis. Springer International Publishing.

[30]

Seetal Potluri, Aydin Aysu, and Akash Kumar. 2020. SeqL: Secure scan-locking for IP-protection. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED’20). IEEE.

[31]

Seetal Potluri, Paul Pop, and Jan Madsen. 2018. Design-for-testability of on-chip control in mVLSI biochips. IEEE Des. Test 36, 1 (2018), 48--56.

[32]

Seetal Potluri, Paul Pop, Jan Madsen, and Alexander Rudiger Schneider. 2018. Microfluidic Valve.U.S. Patent WO 2018 104 516.

[33]

Seetal Potluri, Alexander Schneider, Paul Pop, Jan Madsen et al. 2017. Synthesis of on-chip control circuits for mVLSI biochips. In Proceedings of the Design, Automation 8 Test in Europe Conference 8 Exhibition (DATE’17). IEEE, 1799--1804.

[34]

Jeyavijayan Rajendran, Michael Sam, Ozgur Sinanoglu, and Ramesh Karri. 2013. Security analysis of integrated circuit camouflaging. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer 8 Communications Security. ACM, 709--720.

Digital Library

[35]

Masoud Rostami, Farinaz Koushanfar, and Ramesh Karri. 2014. A primer on hardware security: Models, methods, and metrics. Proc. IEEE 102, 8 (2014), 1283--1295.

[36]

Masoud Rostami, Farinaz Koushanfar, Jeyavijayan Rajendran, and Ramesh Karri. 2013. Hardware security: Threat models and metrics. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD’13). IEEE, 819--823.

[37]

M. F. Schmidt. 2012. Biochip Simulator—Flow-based Microfluidic Biochip Simulation. Master’s thesis. Technical University of Denmark, DTU Informatics.

[38]

Vineeta Shukla, Fawnizu Azmadi Hussin, Nor Hisham Hamid, and Noohul Basheer Zain Ali. 2017. Advances in testing techniques for digital microfluidic biochips. Sensors 17, 8 (2017), 1719.

[39]

Fei Su and Krishnendu Chakrabarty. 2008. High-level synthesis of digital microfluidic biochips. ACM J. Emerg. Technol. Comput. Syst. 3, 4 (2008), 1.

Digital Library

[40]

Fei Su, William Hwang, and Krishnendu Chakrabarty. 2006. Droplet routing in the synthesis of digital microfluidic biochips. In Proceedings of the Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE’06), Vol. 1. IEEE, 1--6.

[41]

Jack Tang, Mohamed Ibrahim, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, and Ramesh Karri. 2017. Security trade-offs in microfluidic routing fabrics. In Proceedings of the IEEE 35th International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD’17). IEEE, 25--32.

[42]

Jack Tang, Ramesh Karri, Mohamed Ibrahim, and Krishnendu Chakrabarty. 2016. Securing digital microfluidic biochips by randomizing checkpoints. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Test Conference (ITC’16). IEEE, 1--8.

[43]

Mohammad Tehranipoor and Farinaz Koushanfar. 2010. A survey of hardware trojan taxonomy and detection. IEEE Des. Test Comput. 27, 1 (2010).

Digital Library

[44]

Adam Waksman, Matthew Suozzo, and Simha Sethumadhavan. 2013. FANCI: Identification of stealthy malicious logic using Boolean functional analysis. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer 8 Communications Security. ACM, 697--708.

Digital Library

[45]

Qin Wang, Shiliang Zuo, Hailong Yao, Tsung-Yi Ho, Bing Li, Ulf Schlichtmann, and Yici Cai. 2017. Hamming-distance-based valve-switching optimization for control-layer multiplexing in flow-based microfluidic biochips. In Proceedings of the 22nd Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC’17). IEEE, 524--529.

[46]

Sheng Wei, Kai Li, Farinaz Koushanfar, and Miodrag Potkonjak. 2012. Hardware trojan horse benchmark via optimal creation and placement of malicious circuitry. In Proceedings of the 49th Design Automation Conference. ACM.

Digital Library

[47]

Jie Zhang, Feng Yuan, and Qiang Xu. 2014. Detrust: Defeating hardware trust verification with stealthy implicitly triggered hardware trojans. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. ACM, 153--166.

Digital Library

Cited By

Dong CGuo XLian SYao YChen ZYang YLiu Z(2024)Harnessing the advances of MEDA to optimize multi-PUF for enhancing IP security of biochipsJournal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences10.1016/j.jksuci.2024.10199636:3(101996)Online publication date: Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksuci.2024.101996
Majumdar RDatta PChowdhury SPal R(2024)Advancement with digital microfluidic biochips towards sustainability and secured outcome: a comprehensive survey on specific design metricsDiscover Electronics10.1007/s44291-024-00018-x1:1Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44291-024-00018-x
Guo WLian SDong CChen ZHuang X(2022)A Survey on Security of Digital Microfluidic Biochips: Technology, Attack, and DefenseACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/349469727:4(1-33)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3494697
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Security of Microfluidic Biochip: Practical Attacks and Countermeasures
1. Security and privacy
  1. Security in hardware

Recommendations

A Survey on Security of Digital Microfluidic Biochips: Technology, Attack, and Defense
As an emerging lab-on-a-chip technology platform, digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs) have been widely used for executing various laboratory procedures in biochemistry and biomedicine such as gene sequencing and near-patient diagnosis, with the ...
Hardware security: threat models and metrics
ICCAD '13: Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design

The globalized semiconductor supply chain is vulnerable to hardware attacks including: Trojans, piracy of intellectual properties (IPs) and/or overbuilding of integrated circuits (ICs), reverse engineering, side-channels, and counterfeiting. In this ...
Security assessment of cyberphysical digital microfluidic biochips

A digital microfluidic biochip (DMFB) is an emerging technology that enables miniaturized analysis systems for point-of-care clinical diagnostics, DNA sequencing, and environmental monitoring. A DMFB reduces the rate of sample and reagent consumption, ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems

ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems Volume 25, Issue 3

May 2020

179 pages

ISSN:1084-4309

EISSN:1557-7309

DOI:10.1145/3386183

Editor:
Naehyuck Chang
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Journal Family

ACM Journals for the Design of Smart and Connected Systems

Publication History

Published: 21 April 2020

Accepted: 01 January 2020

Revised: 01 April 2019

Received: 01 October 2017

Published in TODAES Volume 25, Issue 3

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

6
Total Citations
View Citations
1,219
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)358
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)36

Reflects downloads up to 04 Oct 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Dong CGuo XLian SYao YChen ZYang YLiu Z(2024)Harnessing the advances of MEDA to optimize multi-PUF for enhancing IP security of biochipsJournal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences10.1016/j.jksuci.2024.10199636:3(101996)Online publication date: Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksuci.2024.101996
Majumdar RDatta PChowdhury SPal R(2024)Advancement with digital microfluidic biochips towards sustainability and secured outcome: a comprehensive survey on specific design metricsDiscover Electronics10.1007/s44291-024-00018-x1:1Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44291-024-00018-x
Guo WLian SDong CChen ZHuang X(2022)A Survey on Security of Digital Microfluidic Biochips: Technology, Attack, and DefenseACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/349469727:4(1-33)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3494697
Datta PChakraborty APal R(2022)Attack-Detection and -Recovery: An Integrated Approach Towards Attack-Tolerant Cyber-Physical Digital Microfluidic BiochipsIETE Journal of Research10.1080/03772063.2022.215070070:2(1449-1461)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/03772063.2022.2150700
Dong CLiu XXu YLian S(2022)Security and Innovation Protection of BiochipsHandbook of Biochips10.1007/978-1-4614-3447-4_62(927-947)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3447-4_62
Dong CLiu XXu YLian S(2021)Security and Innovation Protection of BiochipsHandbook of Biochips10.1007/978-1-4614-6623-9_62-1(1-21)Online publication date: 24-Mar-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6623-9_62-1

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents