Cryptographic hardware resistant to Leakage-Based Differential Power Analysis Attacks

Cryptographic hardware designers try and make microchips that does not have electromagnetic emissions that may be used by unauthorized personell to get access to information that should kept secret. This project could be an effort in this that direction.

Attackers may occasionally use Differential Power Analysis (DPA-) attacks where they stimulate cryptosystems implemented in integrated circuits, measure the simultaneous power consumption, and use statistical methods to extract information that was not meant to be accessible to them. Resisting DPA attacks is important to a wide range of cryptographic hardware found in smart cards, medical devices, and military applications, for example.

An increasing fraction of the total power consumption in integrated circuits is static power consumption. This makes modern micro- / nanoelectronic technologies increasingly vulnerable to Leakage-based DPAs. Basic logic gates used in computers, such as INV, NAND, NOR, XOR, XNOR, typically have leakage currents depending on their input patterns. Different logic implementation styles are more or less resistant to Leakage based DPA attacks.

The project is about studying the literature to find one or more promising ways of implementing basic logic gates that are resistant to Leakage based DPA attacks.

Analyzing the conductive paths between the positive power supply and ground, for different combinations of logic inputs, and manipulating mathematical expressions for currents in the topological networks representing different logic gates, may be used for useful comparisons of different logic gate solutions. Hopefully one can also come up with new and promising methods for implementing logic circuits.

If it’s within the interest field of the students, integrated circuit simulators may be exploited as another means of exploring Leakage-based DPA resistant logic building blocks for cryptosystems.



Some relevant literature:

Kocher, P., Jaffe, J., & Jun, B. (1999, August). Differential power analysis. In Annual International Cryptology Conference (pp. 388-397). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Lin, L., & Burleson, W. (2008, May). Leakage-based differential power analysis (LDPA) on sub-90nm CMOS cryptosystems. In 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (pp. 252-255). IEEE.