Threat actors can leverage thermal imaging attacks (e.g., infrared images) to measure heat that is emitted as a means to exfiltrate information from spacecraft processors. Thermal attacks rely on temperature profiling using sensors to extract critical information from the chip(s). The availability of highly sensitive thermal sensors, infrared cameras, and techniques to calculate power consumption from temperature distribution [7] has enhanced the effectiveness of these attacks. As a result, side-channel attacks can be performed by using temperature data without measuring power pins of the chip.
| ID | Name | Tiering | Description | NIST Rev5 | ISO 27001 | Onboard SV | Ground | |
| CM0064 | Dual Layer Protection | Dual-layer physical enclosure protection reduces thermal side-channel leakage by combining an inner heat-spreading layer with an outer thermally insulating barrier. The design is intended to attenuate the spatial and temporal relationship between internal computational activity and externally observable surface-temperature patterns; it must not be assumed to make thermal activity completely unobservable. Thermal side-channel attacks observe temperature or infrared-emission patterns associated with device activity to infer information such as workload, active functional regions, execution behavior, or, under applicable adversary and measurement conditions, security-sensitive computation. The inner conductive layer spreads heat laterally to reduce localized temperature gradients and shorten the persistence of internal hot spots. Residual gradients and transient patterns may remain because of component placement, enclosure geometry, interface conductance, workload, and the available heat-rejection path. The outer thermally insulating layer limits direct access to the inner heat-spreading surface and attenuates the propagation of short-duration temperature gradients to the observable exterior. The external surface may still exhibit temperature or infrared-emission variations that must be evaluated against the mission-defined adversary capability. This countermeasure can operate passively without direct computational or electrical-power consumption. However, it can impose mass, volume, thermal-resistance, heat-rejection, structural, integration, and qualification impacts and may indirectly increase demand on active thermal-control systems. Its suitability must therefore be evaluated against both security and spacecraft thermal-design requirements. | PE-19 PE-19(1) | A.7.5 A.7.8 A.8.12 | ||||
| ID | Name | Description | STIX Pattern |