Power analysis attacks on the AES-128 S-box using differential power analysis (DPA) and correlation power analysis (CPA)

Abstract

This article demonstrates two fundamental techniques of power analysis, differential power analysis (DPA) and correlation power analysis (CPA), against a modern piece of hardware which is widely available to the public: the Arduino Uno microcontroller. The DPA attack we implement is referred to as the Difference of Means attack while the CPA attack is implemented by building a power model of the device using the Hamming Weight Power Model method. The cryptographic algorithm we have chosen to attack is AES-128. In particular, the AddRoundKey and SubBytes functions of this algorithm are implemented on an Arduino Uno and we demonstrate how the full 16-byte cipher key can be deduced using the two techniques by monitoring the power consumption of the device during cryptographic operations. The results of experimentation find that both forms of attack, DPA and CPA, are viable against the Arduino Uno. However, it was found that CPA produces results which are easier to interpret from an analytical perspective. Thus, our contributions in this article is providing a side-by-side comparison on how applicable these two power analysis attack techniques are along with providing a methodology to enable readers to replicate and learn how one may perform such attacks on their own hardware.

Correlation Power Analysis on the PRESENT Block Cipher on an Embedded Device

“…Our technique differs since we use CPA in place of DPA. Additionally, as power analysis against the AES algorithm has shown [9], although DPA is certainly a valid technique it appears quite susceptible to noise and interference thus increasing the probability of false-positives and incorrect results.…”

Correlation power analysis and effective defense approach on light encryption device block cipher

“…This scheme could recover the 128‐bit key of KASUMI. CPA on AES has been presented in Reference . In this attack, the Hamming Weight power model is used to construct the power model of the device to mount the attack on AES‐128.…”

“…This form of attack needs to access internal register values for the computations. CPA on advance encryption standard (AES) has been proposed in literature. To the best of our knowledge, CPA attack on LED has not been discussed in the literature.…”

Lightweight cryptography methods

“…Along with this, it has been identified as having weaknesses our side channel attacks. In [2], the researchers attack a 128-bit AES key on an Arduino device using differential power analysis and correlation power analysis (CPA) and crack it within 30 min.…”

“…Along with this, the method must also have a low requirement for RAM (where the method requires the usage of running memory to perform its operation) and ROM (where the method is stored on the device). In order to assess the strengths of various methods, we often define the area that the cryptography function will use on the deviceand which is defined in µm 2 .…”