Lab: Side Channel

Content

Side channels are communication channels based on execution characteristics that were not meant to be used for communication. Characteristics that underly side channels include execution time, power consumption, and electromagnetic emission. Side channels are known to be serious threats for cryptography implementations for many years. Technological improvements usually come with new possibilities for
side-channel attacks. For instance, the Internet of Things increased the targetable devices and made the threat more relevant than before.

The lab covers the steps necessary to mount side-channel attacks against cryptographic implementations, to recover secret information, and how to mitigate such vulnerabilities:

• implementation of a cryptographic algorithm (AES),
  
• manipulation of power- and time-traces,
  
• side-channel leakage model implementation,
  
• differential side-channel analysis (CPA and LRA),
• extraction of secret key from real-word traces,
• differential side-channel analysis.
  

Prerequisites

Knowledge of Computer Science and Mathematics, equivalent to the first four semesters in the Computer Science Bachelor program,  in particular programming skills.

Literature

• Power analysis attacks - revealing the secrets of smart cards, by Stefan Mangard, Elisabeth Oswald, and Thomas Popp. Springer 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-30857-9, pp. I-XXIII, 1-337
  

Last modified on 27 August 2020.