Luna Innovations Develops Technology to Enhance Cybersecurity

Luna Innovations Inc. has developed technology that uses reverse engineering of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) bitstream design files to improve design integrity and further enhance cybersecurity.

Luna makes it possible to perform high-reliability verification of FPGA designs at a bitstream level to detect any malicious functionality. This is particularly important to keep defense microelectronic systems trusted, safe and mission ready.

FPGAs function as programmable processing chips and are widely used in defense systems because commercially produced FPGAs are affordable and customizable.

“Our technology is like a virus scan for field-programmable gate array designs,” said Jonathan Graf, director of secure computing and communications technologies for Luna. “The FPGA is a microelectronic device and the bitstream tells it what to do. Now, our customers are able to directly verify that the bitstream does what they want it to do and nothing else. Luna’s technology provides the unprecedented ability to detect errors and potential security compromises.”

About $4 billion in FPGAs are purchased each year for use in computing and telecommunications systems.

Initially proven in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s TRUST in Integrated Circuits program, Luna’s bitstream conversion technology creates trust in FPGA designs by verifying design integrity, ensuring no additional operations are performed, and assuring that a bitstream-level design operates as the designer intended.

The technology also has potential in commercial applications.

“In many instances, the design on an old FPGA has proven reliable and effective and our technology allows the customer to use the old design on a newer device,” Graf explained. “Often the term ‘reverse engineering’ is seen in a negative light. In our case, the technology is doing good.”

“Luna’s capabilities allow FPGA designs to be evaluated with a significantly higher degree of confidence than previously available,” said My Chung, CEO of Luna Innovations. “This is a valuable benefit for our customers and illustrates one of our key corporate growth strategies – to be the leading choice for integrated circuits security for weapons systems.”

Over the past seven years, Luna has won more than $20 million in contracts related to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s TRUST in Integrated Circuits program, which ensures the trust of integrated circuits used in military systems that are designed and fabricated under untrustworthy conditions.