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arXiv · 2409.01881

The Impact of Run-Time Variability on Side-Channel Attacks Targeting FPGAs

Davide Galli·Adriano Guarisco·William Fornaciari·Matteo Matteucci·Davide Zoni
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Abstract

To defeat side-channel attacks, many recent countermeasures work by enforcing random run-time variability to the target computing platform in terms of clock jitters, frequency and voltage scaling, and phase shift, also combining the contributions from different actuators to maximize the side-channel resistance of the target. However, the robustness of such solutions seems strongly influenced by several hyper-parameters for which an in-depth analysis is still missing. This work proposes a fine-grained dynamic voltage and frequency scaling actuator to investigate the effectiveness of recent desynchronization countermeasures with the goal of highlighting the link between the enforced run-time variability and the vulnerability to side-channel attacks of cryptographic implementations targeting FPGAs. The analysis of the results collected from real hardware allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the protection offered by run-time variability countermeasures against side-channel attacks.

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Davide Galli, Adriano Guarisco, William Fornaciari, Matteo Matteucci, Davide Zoni. 2024-09-03. The Impact of Run-Time Variability on Side-Channel Attacks Targeting FPGAs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.01881

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