Teaching the next generation of cryptographic hardware design to the next generation of engineers

Abstract

Evolving threats against cryptographic systems and the increasing diversity of computing platforms enforce teaching cryptographic engineering to a wider audience. This paper describes the development of a new graduate course on hardware security taught at North Carolina State University during Fall 2018. The course targets an audience with no background on cryptography or hardware vulnerabilities. The course focuses especially on post-quantum cryptosystems-the next-generation cryptosystems mitigating quantum computer attacks-and evolves into designing specialized hardware accelerators for post-quantum cryptography, executing sophisticated implementation attacks (e.g., side-channel and fault attacks), and building countermeasures on such hardware designs. We discuss the curriculum design, hands-on assignment's development, final research project outcome, and the results obtained from the course together with the associated challenges. Our experience shows that such a course is feasible, can achieve its goals, and liked by the students, but there is room for improvement.