Cybersecurity Regulation of Smart Mobility Hardware Systems: Case Assessment for Spin-Based MTJ Devices

Smart mobility refers to optimizing transportation and communications to integrate new safety, efficiency, sustainability, and air quality standards. It interrelates various solutions, including improved health due to better air quality, less traffic congestion, and fewer victims in road accidents. However, the reliability and cybersecurity aspects of these systems raised serious concerns. A mobility infrastructure may be vulnerable to information leakage and denial of service (DoS) attacks from intelligent attackers. Therefore, hardware security plays a critical role in the computing systems. Globalization of integrated circuit (IC) design flow has increased the complexity, resulting in severe security concerns. Hardware Trojan (HT) insertion, Intellectual property (IP) theft, and many such attacks can pose significant challenges from untrusted entities, and conventional secure hardware mechanisms may not hold with emerging devices. Recent developments in beyond-CMOS devices have resulted in several novel hardware-level attacks and defenses, which motivates us to comprehensively assess the need for cybersecurity regulation for next-generation intelligent and secure hardware systems focussed on spintronic devices. These spin-based devices are potential candidates among emerging devices due to their low power consumption, ease of fabrication in the silicon substrate, and inherent spatial and temporal randomness.