Physical unclonable function

A Physically Unclonable Function is a function that relies on variations which inadvertently exist for the material used for hardware. They produce - given an input - an output that will be different from other instances of said hardware, thus providing a countermeasure against creation of exact clones for a specific product.

An example would be an RFID tag, which can easily be cloned. When equipped with a PUF however, creating a clone in a timely fashion can be next to impossible.

References

• http://people.csail.mit.edu/rudolph/Teaching/Lectures/Security/Lecture-Security-PUFs-2.pdf
• http://www.cs.virginia.edu/papers/2007_3_nd_L_Bolotnyy.pdf