Passive Lightweight On-chip Sensors for Power Side Channel Attack Detection | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore

Passive Lightweight On-chip Sensors for Power Side Channel Attack Detection


Abstract:

Hardware implementations of encryption engines are susceptible to Power Side Channel Attacks (PSCA) and countermeasures only make attacks harder without eliminating them....Show More

Abstract:

Hardware implementations of encryption engines are susceptible to Power Side Channel Attacks (PSCA) and countermeasures only make attacks harder without eliminating them. This work presents a temperature tolerant 65nm CMOS passive on-chip PSCA detection sensor for a AES-128 engine. The design uses on-chip sub-threshold oscillator to detect the resistor normally placed by an attacker on the power-line of an AES chip to mount PSCA. The measurement demonstrates 99.9% probability of successful detection, 1.1ms detection time, minimal area overhead compared to the encryption area and 0.83mW power.
Date of Conference: 19-22 May 2024
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 02 July 2024
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ISSN Information:

Conference Location: Singapore, Singapore

I. Introduction

Hardware implementations of cryptographic engines are susceptible to Power Side Channel Attacks (PSCA). The common practice of performing PSCA is to place an on-board series attack resistance (Rx), of 1Ω or larger, on the power-line (Vtarget) of the crypto-engine, to acquire voltage (or current) signatures. These signatures are then used to perform statistical analysis, such as Correlation Power Analysis (CPA) [1], to reveal the secret key of a cipher (Fig. 1). Several on-chip PSCA countermeasures have been proposed [2]–[6] to make it difficult to correlate power models in CPA and increase the Minimum Traces to Disclosure (MTD) of the secret key. While these measures make it harder to extract the key, they do not completely prevent PSCA. Hence, on-chip circuits to detect and prevent on-going PSCA are required.

References

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