Enhanced side-channel leakage detection method by considering combinational logic

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a hybrid power model that includes the power consumption of not only the registers but also part of the combinational logic. By doing knownkey analysis with this hybrid model, power side-channel leakage caused by correct keys can be detected. In experiment, PRINTcipher and DES algorithms were chosen as analysis targets and combinational logic s-box unit was selected to build power template. The analysis results showed the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) power consumption increase of more than 20% after considering s-box’s power consumption so that the information of keys can be obtained with just half number of power traces. In addition, the side channel-leakage detection capability of our method also shows better effectiveness that can identify the correct keys.