An Improved Method of Side Channel Leak Assessment for Cryptographic Algorithm

As a standard method of side channel leak assessment, TVLA is a popular research direction of side channel attack. TVLA mainly conducts leak assessment based on Welch’s t-test or paired t-test, but in some evaluation scenarios, different leak assessment results may appear in the two hypothesis tests. Firstly, the modified relationship between the two kinds of t-tests is studied in theory, and then it is pointed out that the paired t-test is better when there is a positive correlation between the two groups of sampled populations to be evaluated, while the correcting two-sample t-test is needed when there is an independent or negative correlation. Secondly, it is verified by experiments that in common experimental scenarios, such as noise of common measuring equipment, temperature fluctuation and the choice of cross-input plaintext sequence will lead to positive correlation between samples, especially in the first two scenarios, the paired t-test can play a fast, efficient and robust role. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the method of mutual correction by two hypothesis tests ensures the accuracy and efficiency of side channel leakage assessment.