A split-mask countermeasure for low-energy secure embedded systems

  • Authors:
  • Catherine H. Gebotys

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

  • Venue:
  • ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS)
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Future wireless embedded devices will be increasingly powerful, supporting many more applications, including one of the most crucial---security. Although many embedded devices offer more resistance to bus---probing attacks because of their compact size, susceptibility to power or electromagnetic analysis attacks must be analyzed. This paper presents a new split-mask countermeasure to thwart low-order differential power analysis (DPA) and differential EM analysis (DEMA). For the first time, real-power and EM measurements are used to analyze the difficulty of launching new third-order DPA and DEMA attacks on a popular low-energy 32-bit embedded ARM processor. Results show that the new split-mask countermeasure provides increased security without large overheads of energy dissipation, compared to previous research. With the emergence of security applications in PDAs, cell phones, and other embedded devices, low-energy countermeasures for resistance to low-order DPA/DEMA is crucial for supporting future enabled wireless internet.