Some of the MCU designers are used to derive unique keys from physical unclonable functions (PUF) to prevent MCU Flash/Eeprom Data Cloning. By reducing the data remanence time the contents of the SRAM can be refreshed more often and with higher randomness.
The research presented in this paper demonstrates that SRAM data remanence problem still exists in modern microcontrollers and like before deteriorates at low temperatures.
This paper offers a low-cost solution to completely eliminate the data remanence problem at almost no cost. It also demonstrates that Flash/EEPROM memory can be affected in the same way when carry out MCU Flash/Eeprom Data Cloning and this could have influence on the security of embedded systems.
Data retention can affect reliability of automotive and industrial systems. The results of this research should be of considerable concern to the developers of secure devices.
This article makes the following contributions: it demonstrates that data remanence effect is present in embedded SRAM especially in the Unlock Microcontroller Embedded Memory; it suggests a solution to significantly reduce data remanence time; it reveals that negative power glitching affects the security of some microcontrollers; it exposes security issues related to short data retention time of embedded EEPROM when Recover MCU program.