Non-invasive EMI-based fault injection attack against cryptographic modules

In this paper, we introduce a new type of intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) which causes information leakage in electrical devices without disrupting their operation or damaging their physical structure. Such IEMI could pose a severe threat to a large number of electrical devices with cryptographic modules since it can be used for performing fault injection attacks, which in turn allows for obtaining faulty outputs (i.e., ciphertexts) from cryptographic modules and exploiting them to reveal information about secret keys. Such faulty outputs are usually generated by inducing faults into target modules through modification or invasion of the modules themselves. In contrast, IEMI-based fault injection can be performed on the target modules from a distance by using an off-the-shelf injection probe without leaving any hard evidence of the attack. We demonstrate fault injection attacks based on the above IEMI through experiments using an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) module implemented on a standard evaluation board (SASEBO). The experimental results indicate that generating effective faults is feasible and, therefore, such IEMI presents a tangible threat to many existing electrical devices and systems that use cryptographic modules for secure communication and transactions.