Unlocking Hidden Secrets: Leveraging SRAM Aging Imprints for Sensitive Data Recovery

Long-term data remanence in SRAMs can pose serious security risks when ICs containing sensitive information are discarded at the end of their operational life. Sensitive information can fall into unauthorized hands if these ICs are not sanitized properly. Traditionally, data remanence has been addressed primarily in DRAM and flash memories, while SRAMs have been overlooked due to very short retention periods. Hovanes et al. [1] demonstrated that SRAMs are vulnerable to data remanence attacks, which can retrieve static data, such as firmware and keys. Their method exploits aging-induced imprints on power-up states, enabling partial recovery by comparing aged states with the originals. Although effective, this method requires maintaining records of all initial power-up states. In this paper, we propose a data recovery approach that does not require access to prior information. Our method also exploits data imprinting in SRAMs, but instead of using actual initial power-up states, we employ controlled aging to reconstruct them. Experiments on SRAM chips storing a binary image demonstrated near-complete recovery after 12 hours of controlled aging at 100◦C using 32 copies.