Target Preparation Methodology for Semi-Invasive Attacks on Microcontrollers

Semi-invasive attacks have been shown to be a powerful class of attacks. They are increasingly common, reuniting a number of different techniques that can be used for observation or fault injection, particularly on microcontrollers units (MCUs). They require the preparation of supporting circuitry for powering and interfacing with the MCU, and the decapsulation (either front or backside) of the chip itself. The steps involved require different skills and knowledge. In this work we propose a guideline for preparing and conditioning the target and its circuitry, give details of the cost, time and the necessary skills for each step and validate the final product by carrying out semi-invasive attacks on it.