A new class of security oriented error correcting robust codes

Robust codes are codes that can detect any nonzero errore with probability 1 − Q(e) > 0. This property makes them useful in protecting hardware systems from fault injection attacks which cause an arbitrary number of bit flips. This paper presents a new construction of non-linear robust q-ary codes with q = 2^m and an error correction capability. The codes are built upon systematic linear codes [n, k, d]_q whereas the n − k redundant symbols that were originally allocated to increase the minimum distance of the code are modified to provide both correction capability and robustness. The error masking probability of the codes is Q(e) upper bounded by 2/q for odd values of m and by 4/q for even m. Hence, they are more effective in detecting maliciously injected errors and have a higher code rate than codes obtained by concatenation of a linear error correcting code with a security oriented code.