Evaluation of countermeasure implementations based on Boolean masking to thwart side-channel attacks

Entropy-based power attack

“…In this subsection, we compare the EPA attack (this article) to the MIA [8] and VPA [13] attacks. Following the recent advances concerning the comparison of univariate side-channel distinguishers [20], we apply the first-order success rate to assess the performance of the three attacks.…”

“…It is carried out on a DES coprocessor which is part of a SoC programmed in an FPGA. This attack is compared with the MIA attack and another successful attack so-called Variance Power Analysis (VPA) based on the variance distinguisher proposed in [13], [20].…”

A Novel Design Flow for a Security-Driven Synthesis of Side-Channel Hardened Cryptographic Modules

“…The third countermeasure extending the design is a Boolean masking countermeasure as well, but now, it masks the entire data path, as shown in Figure 4 on the right-hand side. In this case study, the secure S-box component S (x) of the embedded countermeasure is based on the USM S-box scheme presented in [14]. We selected this scheme because it is the most generic and may be embedded into a data path featuring any non-linear logic operations.…”

“…We refer to [3] for more information on countermeasures against power analysis attacks. [5] x x Dual-rail-logic [6,7] x x Register pre-charging [8,9] x x Random clock [10] x (x) x TImasking [11,12] x x Boolean masking [13] x x USMmasking [14] x x MDPL [15,16] x x x…”

“…Hence, the correction part of the USM is unmasked, cf. [14], and additionally prone to data-dependent glitches, as discussed in [30].…”