Efficient Activation Method of Hardware Trojan Based on Greedy Algorithm

To generate test vector sets that can efficiently activate hardware Trojans and improve probability of the hardware Trojan activation, an efficient hardware Trojan activation method is proposed based on greedy algorithm for combinatorial hardware Trojans. Based on the greedy algorithm and the recursive construction method in the combination test, the method formulates appropriate and useful greedy strategy and generates test vector sets with different combinatorial correlation coefficients to activate hardware Trojans in target circuits. The experiment was carried out based on advanced encryption standard (AES) hardware encryption circuit,different combinatorial hardware Trojans were implanted in AES as target circuits, the experiment of detecting hardware Trojans in target circuits was performed by applying the proposed method and different combinatorial hardware Trojans in target circuits were activated successfully many times in the experiment. The experimental results show that the test vector sets generated using the proposed method could effectively activate combinatorial hardware Trojans, improve the probability of the hardware Trojan being activated, and also be applied to practice.