Physical Security in a Cryptographic Enviroment

Dear Colleagues,

Physical security in cryptographic systems is an interdisciplinary and basic research area. In general, treating the physical properties of participating entities jointly with the cryptographic schemes involved is a complex issue due to its interdisciplinary nature. Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs), as one such technology, have been introduced in the last two decades to fabricate physically unclonable units. Unclonable or non-replaceable physical units, in fact, represent a basic security anchor for resilient security systems. Emerging IoT (Internet of Things) and the contemporary efforts towards developing Smart Homes and Smart Cities—involving human beings, devices, structures and virtually “everything”—represent a great interdisciplinary challenge facing the security research community. The tendency towards worldwide global networking of “virtually everything” opens new, very essential security-relevant issues. System designers face unlimited borderless participating entities dealing with different state regulations and a variety of forensic, political and even cultural issues. Publications concerning physical security in the cryptographic environment is still far behind that of intensively-treated “soft” cryptographic techniques in public literature. One ultimate goal of physical security is to attain the same level as biological system security, which is still seen as the most robust physical security ever known. Bio-inspired security can therefore be seen as a good reference for physical security in modern systems. Biometrics have successfully been integrated in modern security systems. Mechatronic systems, and especially automotive systems demand ever higher “mechatronic security” techniques which are still far from being ready for real field applications.

This Special Issue on physical security is a step to stimulate more open scientific discussions on all issues related to this challenging topic.

Prof. Dr. Wael Adi
Guest Editors

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