September 12, 2016
Alum chosen as one of Popular Science’s 10 most brilliant people of 2016
Alumnus Siddharth Garg is one of Popular Science’s 10 most brilliant people of 2016. Garg was featured as a top 10 for his solution that prevents hackers from tweaking microchips. It starts with one saboteur at a factory who tweaks a chip, then when a certain trigger occurs, an attacker can commandeer the microchip and the device in which the chip is embedded. Garg’s solution was to break up the chip’s fabrication process across many manufacturers using high-level math. With his method, it is difficult for hackers to know which chip has been tweaked and it is hard to make counterfeits. Currently, many large companies, such as Boeing, are using his method to protect their chips. Read more.