Fault Analysis Attack against an AES Prototype Chip Using RSL

Abstract

This paper reports a successful Fault Analysis (FA) attack against a prototype AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) hardware implementation using a logic-level countermeasure called Random Switching Logic (RSL). The idea of RSL was proposed as one of the most effective countermeasures for preventing Differential Power Analysis (DPA) attacks. The RSL technique was applied to AES and a prototype ASIC was implement with a 0.13-μ m standard CMOS library. Although the main purpose of using RSL is to enhance the DPA resistance, our evaluation results for the ASIC reveal that the DPA countermeasure of RSL can negatively affect the resistance against FA attacks. We show that the circuits using RSL has a potential vulnerability against FA attacks by increasing the clock frequency.