Paper 2020/249

CONFISCA : an SIMD-based CONcurrent FI and SCA countermeasure with switchable performance and security modes

Ehsan Aerabi, Cyril Bresch, David Hély, Athanasios Papadimitriou, and Mahdi Fazeli

Abstract

CONFISCA is the first generic SIMD-based software countermeasure that can concurrently resist against Side-Channel Attack (SCA) and Fault Injection (FI). Its promising strength is presented in a PRESENT cipher case study and compared to software-based Dual-rail with Pre-charge Logic concurrent countermeasure. It has lower overhead, wider usability, and higher protection. Its protection has been compared using Correlation Power Analysis, Welch’s T-Test, Signal- to- Noise Ratio and Normalized Inter-Class Variance testing methods. CONFISCA can on-the-fly switch between its two modes of operation: The High-Performance and High-Security by having only one instance of the cipher. This gives us the flexibility to trade performance/energy with security, based on the actual critical needs.