Secure Additive Manufacturing Proccess Chain

Motivation

The increasing use of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies, colloquially known as 3D printing, in Industry 4.0 and Manufacturing-as-a-Service has made it a topic of interest for IT security and forensics. Especially the use of AM for safety-critical parts, for example, in the SpaceX SuperDraco engine or parts of an Airbus jet engine, underlines the importance of such research.

Task

Securing the CAD/CAM/CNC process chain (see figure) thus requires a holistic security approach to secure digital data against malicious manipulations along the whole process chain. The goal of the thesis is to evaluate existing approaches to secure additive and similar process chains. Based on the findings, a security concept shall be developed and prototypically implemented on a 3D- printer. This may be done by extending slicer and printer firmware. Current trends and findings from previous projects like hardware trust anchors or post quantum cryptography should be considered and if possible integrated into the testbed.

Prerequisites

• Self-initiative an the ability to work self-directed and systematically
• Knowledge in the field of IT security, ideally in OT Security or supply chain security
• Programming experience and fun in working with large established projects
• Basic understanding of 3D printing (Cura, Slic3r, Marlin, ...) is beneficial, but not a must

Please attach a current grade sheet and a short CV to your application so that we can assess your qualification for the topic of your choice.

Contact

Nikolai Puch

Phone: +49 89 322-9986-142
E-mail: nikolai.puch@aisec.fraunhofer.de E-mail:

Michael Heinl

Phone: +49 89 322-9986-125

michael.heinl@aisec.fraunhofer.de

Fraunhofer Research Institute for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC Department Product Protection and Industrial Security Lichtenbergstraße 11, 85748 Garching near Munich, Germany https://www.aisec.fraunhofer.de