Title
Side-channel resistant soft core processor for lightweight block ciphers
Abstract
Lightweight cryptographic algorithms which provide moderate security at low cost, especially in very-light power-, energy, and resource-constrained processors, are an important topic of research in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT). Current cryptographic contests and standardization efforts seek to evaluate side-channel resistance of lightweight ciphers on multiple platforms, including resource-constrained 8-bit microprocessors. Using a custom-designed reconfigurable soft core processor on an FPGA, we implement four ciphers, SIMON, PRESENT, LED, and TWINE, and evaluate them for vulnerability to differential power analysis (DPA) using the t-test leakage detection methodology and an open-source test bench (FOBOS). We then adapt and modify techniques used in previous cipher hardware implementations to protect the soft core processor against 1 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">st</sup> order DPA. Improved resistance to DPA is verified using the t-test and the FOBOS test bench. No modifications to cipher source code are required for the protected soft core, meaning that software programmers are insulated from the requirement to learn side-channel resistance techniques. A single DPA-resistant soft core instance, which can load and protect all four ciphers simultaneously (where target cipher is selected by the user at run-time), uses 392 slices in the Virtex-7 FPGA — an average of 98 slices per protected cipher.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1109/RECONFIG.2017.8279819
2017 International Conference on ReConFigurable Computing and FPGAs (ReConFig)
Keywords
Field
DocType
Cryptography,side channel attack,field programmable gate array,reconfigurable,microcontroller,t-test
Power analysis,Cipher,Block cipher,Test bench,Cryptography,Source code,Computer science,Parallel computing,Field-programmable gate array,Side channel attack,Embedded system
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
2325-6532
978-1-5386-3798-2
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
11
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
William Diehl1143.67
Abubakr Abdulgadir204.06
Jens-Peter Kaps343037.83
Kris Gaj4842116.21