SecHuman2 Research Topic: Cognitive Aspects in Netlist Reverse Engineering

Prof. Dr. Nikol Rummel
(Pädagogische Psychologie und Bildungstechnologie)

M.Sc. Markus Weber
Prof. Christof Paar (Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy)
René Walendy (University of Bochum)

SecHuman is a transdiciplinary graduate school in which tandems of doctoral students work on contemporary technical and societal challenges of IT security. These tandems are joined by a field-partner (enterprise, NGO, …).

Despite intensive technical research, netlist reverse engineering remains an opaque and as yet little understood process. This is due, among other things, to the fact that non-automated procedures of human analysts in netlist reverse engineering are largely unclear. Initial exploratory findings from qualitative data suggest that working memory may have an impact on speed in hardware reverse engineering (Becker & Wiesen et al., 2020). The aim of the current project is to validate these results and identify further cognitive factors associated with netlist reverse engineering experiences.

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