Paper 2024/1381

Reality Check on Side-Channels: Lessons learnt from breaking AES on an ARM Cortex A processor

Harishma Boyapally, TL@NTU Singapore
Dirmanto Jap, TL@NTU Singapore
Qianmei Wu, Zhejiang University, China
Fan Zhang, Zhejiang University, China
Shivam Bhasin, TL@NTU Singapore
Abstract

Side-channel analysis (SCA) has posed a significant threat to systems for nearly three decades. Numerous practical demonstrations have targeted everyday devices, such as smartcards, cryptocurrency wallets, and smartphones. However, much of the research in the public domain has focused on low-end microcontrollers, limiting our understanding of the challenges involved in attacking more complex systems. In this work, we conduct a reality check on SCA by targeting a high-performance ARM Cortex-A72 out-of-order processor, commonly found in smartphones. We evaluate the practical effort required for key recovery attacks, considering various threat models, from basic to advanced. Our results show that while basic approaches fail, advanced approaches like deep learning-based SCA can successfully recover the secret key. This multi-tier evaluation approach is crucial for comprehensive risk assessment and informed decision-making regarding mitigation strategies, balancing security, performance, and area constraints.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Attacks and cryptanalysis
Publication info
Preprint.
Keywords
AESComplex ProcessorsEM Side-channelDeep Learning based Side-ChannelRaspberry PiArm Cortex A72
Contact author(s)
harishma boyapally @ gmail com
djap @ ntu edu sg
qianmei @ zju edu cn
fanzhang @ zju edu cn
sbhasin @ ntu edu sg
History
2025-05-29: last of 2 revisions
2024-09-03: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2024/1381
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2024/1381,
      author = {Harishma Boyapally and Dirmanto Jap and Qianmei Wu and Fan Zhang and Shivam Bhasin},
      title = {Reality Check on Side-Channels: Lessons learnt from breaking {AES} on an {ARM} Cortex A processor},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2024/1381},
      year = {2024},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/1381}
}
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