Side-Channel Analysis Attacks and Countermeasures

Side-channel analysis attacks target cryptographic implementations passively. The attacks exploit the possibility of the attacker observing the physical characteristics of a device that is running a cryptographic algorithm. The attacker obtains the side-channel information, e.g., power consumption, electromagnetic emanation, execution time, etc., and then utilizes such information to recover the secret key. In this chapter, we will focus on power analysis attacks that exploit power consumption information. Different attack methodologies on symmetric block ciphers and on RSA will be presented. Corresponding countermeasures will also be discussed.