DeepCover DS28C36: A Hardware Vulnerability Identification and Exploitation Using T-Test and Double Laser Fault Injection

Karim M. Abdellatif; Olivier Hériveaux

Paper 2023/1375

DeepCover DS28C36: A Hardware Vulnerability Identification and Exploitation Using T-Test and Double Laser Fault Injection

Karim M. Abdellatif, Ledger

Olivier Hériveaux, Ledger

Abstract

DeepCover is a secure authenticator circuit family developed by Analog Devices. It was designed to provide cryptographic functions, true random number generation, and EEPROM secure storage. DS28C36 is one of the DeepCover family, which is widely used in secure boot and secure download for IoT. It has been recently deployed in the Coldcard Mk4 hardware wallet as a second secure element to enhance its security. In this paper, we present for the first time, a detailed evaluation for the DS28C36 secure EEPROM against Laser Fault Injection (LFI). In the context of a black box approach, we prove by experimental results that the chip resists single fault attacks. In order to overcome this, we present the use of leakage detection such as Welch’s T-test to facilitate finding the correct moments for injecting successful faults, which is not common in Fault Injection (FI) as this method has been used only for Side-Channel Attacks (SCAs). By using this knowledge, we found two moments for injecting laser pulses to extract the protected EEPROM user pages with 99% success rate. The attack can be reproduced within a day. The presented attack negatively impacts the users of DS28C36 (including Coldcard Mk4).

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Attacks and cryptanalysis
Publication info: Published elsewhere. FDTC 2023
Keywords: DeepCover DS28C36 Laser Fault Injection Secure EEPROM.
Contact author(s): karim abdellatif @ ledger fr
olivier heriveaux @ ledger fr
History: 2023-09-15: approved; 2023-09-14: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2023/1375
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2023/1375,
      author = {Karim M. Abdellatif and Olivier Hériveaux},
      title = {DeepCover DS28C36: A Hardware Vulnerability Identification and Exploitation Using T-Test and Double Laser Fault Injection},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2023/1375},
      year = {2023},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1375}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1375}
}