International Journal of Reconfigurable and Embedded Systems (IJRES)
Vol 12, No 3: November 2023

Empirical analysis of power side-channel leakage of high-level synthesis designed AES circuits

Takumi Mizuno (Ritsumeikan University)
Hiroki Nishikawa (Osaka University)
Xiangbo Kong (Ritsumeikan University)
Hiroyuki Tomiyama (Ritsumeikan University)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Nov 2023

Abstract

Many internet of things (IoT) devices and integrated circuit (IC) cards have been compromised by side-channel attacks. Power-analysis attacks, which identify the secret key of a cryptographic circuit by analyzing the power traces, are among the most dangerous side-channel attacks. Gen-erally, there is a trade-off between execution time and circuit area. However, the correlation between security and performance has yet to be determined. In this study, we investigate the cor-relation between side-channel attack resistance and performance (execution time and circuit area) of advanced encryption standard (AES) circuits. Eleven AES circuits with different performances are designed by high-level synthesis and logic synthesis. Of the eleven AES circuits, six are circuits with no side-channel attack countermeasures and five are circuits with masking countermeasures. We employ four metrics based on a T-test to evaluate the side-channel attack resistance. The results based on the correlation coefficient show the correlation between side-channel attack resistance and performance. The correlation varies according to four metrics or masking countermeasure. We argue that designers should change their attitudes towards circuit design when considering security.

Copyrights © 2023






Journal Info

Abbrev

IJRES

Publisher

Subject

Economics, Econometrics & Finance

Description

The centre of gravity of the computer industry is now moving from personal computing into embedded computing with the advent of VLSI system level integration and reconfigurable core in system-on-chip (SoC). Reconfigurable and Embedded systems are increasingly becoming a key technological component ...