Information Leakage in Code-based Masking: A Systematic Evaluation by Higher-Order Attacks

Wei Cheng; Sylvain Guilley; Jean-Luc Danger

Paper 2022/461

Information Leakage in Code-based Masking: A Systematic Evaluation by Higher-Order Attacks

Wei Cheng, Sylvain Guilley, and Jean-Luc Danger

Abstract

Code-based masking is a recent line of research on masking schemes aiming at provably counteracting side-channel attacks. It generalizes and unifies many masking schemes within a coding-theoretic formalization. In code-based masking schemes, the tuning parameters are the underlying linear codes, whose choice significantly affects the side-channel resilience. In this paper, we investigate the exploitability of the information leakage in code-based masking and present attack-based evaluation results of higher-order optimal distinguisher (HOOD). Particularly, we consider two representative instances of code-based masking, namely inner product masking (IPM) and Shamir's secret sharing (SSS) based masking. Our results do confirm the state-of-the-art theoretical derivatives in an empirical manner with numerically simulated measurements. Specifically, theoretical results are based on quantifying information leakage; we further complete the panorama with attack-based evaluations by investigating the exploitability of the leakage. Moreover, we classify all possible candidates of linear codes in IPM with 2 and 3 shares and (3,1)-SSS based masking, and highlight both optimal and worst codes for them. Relying on our empirical evaluations, we therefore recommend investigating the coding-theoretic properties to find the best linear codes in strengthening instances of code-based masking. As for applications, our attack-based evaluation directly empowers designers, by employing optimal linear codes, to enhance the protection of code-based masking. Our framework leverages simulated leakage traces, hence allowing for source code validation or patching in case it is found to be attackable.

Note: Adding DOI of this paper and fixing two formatting issues in the published version.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Implementation
Publication info: Published elsewhere. Minor revision. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
DOI: 10.1109/TIFS.2022.3167914
Keywords: Side-Channel Attacks Countermeasures Leakage Exploitation Mutual Information Inner Product Masking Shamir's Secret Sharing Code-based Masking Pre-silicon Simulation-based Evaluation
Contact author(s): wei cheng @ telecom-paris fr
sylvain guilley @ secure-ic com
History: 2022-05-16: last of 2 revisions; 2022-04-22: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2022/461
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2022/461,
      author = {Wei Cheng and Sylvain Guilley and Jean-Luc Danger},
      title = {Information Leakage in Code-based Masking: A Systematic Evaluation by Higher-Order Attacks},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2022/461},
      year = {2022},
      doi = {10.1109/TIFS.2022.3167914},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/461}
}