Correlation Power Analysis of Lightweight Block Ciphers: From Theory to Practice
English
Biryukov, Alex[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication (FSTC) > Computer Science and Communications Research Unit (CSC) >]
Dinu, Dumitru-Daniel[University of Luxembourg > Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SNT) > >]
Groszschädl, Johann[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication (FSTC) > Computer Science and Communications Research Unit (CSC) >]
Jun-2016
Applied Cryptography and Network Security - 14th International Conference, ACNS 2016, Guildford, UK, June 19-22, 2016. Proceedings
Manulis, Mark
Sadeghi, Ahmad-Reza
Schneider, Steve
Springer Verlag
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 9696
537-557
Yes
International
14th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS 2016)
from 20-06-2016 to 22-06-2016
Guildford
United Kingdom
[en] Side-Channel Analysis (SCA) ; Correlation Power Analysis ; Selection Function ; Leakage ; Nonlinearity
[en] Side-Channel Analysis (SCA) represents a serious threat to the security of millions of smart devices that form part of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT). Choosing the "right" cryptographic primitive for the IoT is a highly challenging task due to the resource constraints of IoT devices and the variety of primitives. An important criterion to assess the suitability of a lightweight cipher with respect to SCA is the amount of leakage available to an adversary. In this paper, we analyze the efficiency of different selection functions that are commonly used in Correlation Power Analysis (CPA) attacks on symmetric primitives. To this end, we attacked implementations of the lightweight block ciphers AES, Fantomas, LBlock, Piccolo, PRINCE, RC5, Simon, and Speck on an 8-bit AVR processor. By exploring the relation between the nonlinearity of the studied selection functions and the measured leakages, we discovered some imperfections when using nonlinearity to quantify the resilience against CPA. Then, we applied these findings in an evaluation of the "intrinsic" CPA-resistance of unprotected implementations of the eight mentioned ciphers. We show that certain implementation aspects can influence the leakage level and try to explain why. Our results shed new light on the resilience of basic operations executed by these ciphers against CPA and help to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication (FSTC) > Computer Science and Communications Research Unit (CSC) >]
