Algebraic Side Channel Attack on Trivium and Grain Ciphers

Abstract

Solving a system of multivariate quadratic equations obtained through algebraic cryptanalysis is a nondeterministic polynomial time-complete problem. Owing to the trend of stream ciphers based on nonlinear update, the success of algebraic attacks has been limited to their reduced variants. On the other hand, side channel attacks (SCAs), although require a continued access to the target device for capturing leakages, are a potent threat against the stream ciphers. Algebraic SCA (ASCA) combines and solves equations obtained through algebraic cryptanalysis and partial SCA of cipher implementation. ASCA is successfully being applied against block ciphers since 2009; however, there is no existing published work on ASCA against stream ciphers as per our knowledge. In this paper, we propose an idea of mounting ASCA on stream ciphers, and we demonstrated it through the application of ASCA on trivium and grain stream ciphers.