Special Issue on Emerging Nanoscale Architectures for Hardware Security, Trust, and Reliability: Part 1

There is an increasing concern involving the security, trust, and reliability of the hardware underlying the information systems on which modern society is reliant for mission-critical and safety-critical functions. Secure, trustworthy and reliable hardware components, and platforms and supply chains are vital to all domains, including financial, healthcare, transportation, energy, and the national defense. Traditionally, authenticity, integrity, and confidentiality of information were being protected with security protocols in software with the underlying hardware assumed to be secure, trustworthy, and reliable. However, this assumption is no longer true with an increasing number of attacks being reported on the hardware root of trust. Whereas security, trust, and reliability risks are better understood in software, understanding and addressing threats to the hardware root of trust are a critical emerging challenge and the focus of this special issue.