Lightweight Countermeasures Against Static Power Side-Channel Attacks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bhandari, Jitendra, Nabeel, Mohammed, Mankali, Likhitha, Sinanoglu, Ozgur, Karri, Ramesh, Knechtel, Johann
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Bhandari, Jitendra
Nabeel, Mohammed
Mankali, Likhitha
Sinanoglu, Ozgur
Karri, Ramesh
Knechtel, Johann
author_facet Bhandari, Jitendra
Nabeel, Mohammed
Mankali, Likhitha
Sinanoglu, Ozgur
Karri, Ramesh
Knechtel, Johann
contents This paper presents a novel defense strategy against static power side-channel attacks (PSCAs), a critical threat to cryptographic security. Our method is based on (1) carefully tuning high-Vth versus low-Vth cell selection during synthesis, accounting for both security and timing impact, and (2), at runtime, randomly switching the operation between these cells. This approach serves to significantly obscure static power patterns, which are at the heart of static PSCAs. Our experimental results on a commercial 28nm node show a drastic increase in the effort required for a successful attack, namely up to 96 times more traces. When compared to prior countermeasures, ours incurs little cost, making it a lightweight defense.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_03196
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Lightweight Countermeasures Against Static Power Side-Channel Attacks
Bhandari, Jitendra
Nabeel, Mohammed
Mankali, Likhitha
Sinanoglu, Ozgur
Karri, Ramesh
Knechtel, Johann
Cryptography and Security
This paper presents a novel defense strategy against static power side-channel attacks (PSCAs), a critical threat to cryptographic security. Our method is based on (1) carefully tuning high-Vth versus low-Vth cell selection during synthesis, accounting for both security and timing impact, and (2), at runtime, randomly switching the operation between these cells. This approach serves to significantly obscure static power patterns, which are at the heart of static PSCAs. Our experimental results on a commercial 28nm node show a drastic increase in the effort required for a successful attack, namely up to 96 times more traces. When compared to prior countermeasures, ours incurs little cost, making it a lightweight defense.
title Lightweight Countermeasures Against Static Power Side-Channel Attacks
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03196