Partitioned security processor architecture on FPGA platform

Abstract

Internet protocol security (IPSec), secure sockets layer (SSL)/transport layer security (TLS) and other security protocols necessitate high throughput hardware implementation of cryptographic functions. In recent literature, cryptographic functions implemented in software, application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and field programmable gate array (FPGA). They are not necessarily optimized for throughput. Due to the various side-channel based attacks on cache and memory, and various malware based exfiltration of security keys and other sensitive information, cryptographic enclave processors are implemented which isolates the cryptographically sensitive information like keys. We propose a partitioned enclave architecture targeting IPSec, TLS and SSL where the partitioned area ensures that the processor data-path is completely isolated from the secret-key memory. The security processor consists of a Trivium random number generator, Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), advanced encryption standard (AES) and KECCAK cryptos. We implement three different optimized KECCAK architectures. The processing element (PE) handles all communication interfaces, data paths, and control hazards of network security processor. The memory of KECCAK and AES communication is done via a direct memory access controller to reduce the PE overhead. The whole system is demonstrated by FPGA implementation using Vivado 2015.2 on Artix-7 (XC7A100T, CSG324). The performances of the implemented KECCAKs are better in terms of security, throughput and resource than the existing literature.