Ph.D. Defense: José Lopes Esteves – June 6, 2023

José Lopes Esteves, industrial Ph.D. student in collaboration with ANSSI, will defend his Ph.D. thesis on June 6, 2023, at 2:00 p.m, in the “Boris Vian” Thesis Room (37.2.43) at CNAM, 2 rue Conté, 75003 Paris, France.

José worked with the ANSSI on the impacts of Intentional Electromagnetic Interference on the information security of electronic devices. He proposed an information oriented effect observation approach suitable for detection and forensic analysis and proposed several new threat models exploiting the electromagnetic susceptibility of the targets. He will continue his work on electromagnetic security in the Wireless Security Lab of the ANSSI.

To follow the defence online, please use the following link: José Esteves Ph.D. defence

Thesis Title: Electromagnetic interferences and Information security : characterization, exploitation and forensic analysis

Thesis Title (French): Interférences électromagnétiques et sécurité de l’information : caractérisation, exploitation et investigation numérique

Abstract:

Electronic devices have become ubiquitous in all sectors of our lives, from military to civilian, from critical infrastructures to our homes, our cars, our pacemakers. This widespread comes with increasing needs for the security of the information manipulated by electronic devices. The work in this thesis was focused on the effects of intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) on electronic devices and their impact on information security. Approaches for studying these effects through an electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) prism are not tailored to enable information security assessments. An effect assessment methodology involving software-level fault models is proposed and applied to several electronic devices. A key benefit of this methodology is the straightforward possibility to derive impacts on information security, as well as to design countermeasures, detection and forensics strategies.

Exploitability analysis is also facilitated and, as an outcome, new ways of exploiting IEMI effects were uncovered. An original attack was designed targeting a smartphone involving IEMI to obtain a remote, stealthy, unauthorized use of voice assistants by exploiting the susceptibility of the audio front-end. A new threat model was discovered and demonstrated, consisting in an exploitation of IEMI for the establishment of covert communication channels. A new threat model was explored,electromagnetic watermarking, which exploits specific IEMI effects to introduce information into a remote non-cooperating target. A practical application was proposed to provide a forensics tracking capability in a framework of counter unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS).

José’s publications:

Access Thesis: https://theses.fr/2023HESAC007