Fault Attacks Research Articles

A Novel DFA on AES: Based on Two–Byte Fault Model with Discontiguous Rows

Differential fault attack (DFA) is a distinctive methodology for acquiring the key to block ciphers, which comprises two distinct strategies: DFA on the state and DFA on the key schedule. Given the widespread adoption of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), it has emerged as a prominent target for DFA. This paper presents an efficient DFA on the AES, utilizing a two−byte fault model that induces faults at the state with discontiguous rows. The experiment demonstrates that, based on the proposed fault model, the key for AES–128, AES–192, and AES–256 can be successfully recovered by exploiting two, two, and four faults, respectively, without the need for exhaustive research. Notably, in the case of AES–256, when considering exhaustive research, two (or three) faults are needed with 232 (or 216) exhaustive searches. In comparison to the currently available DFA on the AES state, the proposed attack method shows a higher efficiency due to the reduced induced faults.

A Break Of Barrier To Classical Differential Fault Attack On The Nonce-Based Authenticated Encryption Algorithm

Abstract It had always been believed that there was an inherent barrier to Differential Fault Attack (DFA) on the nonce-based authenticated encryption algorithm. At CHES 2016, Saha et al. proposed an Internal Differential Fault Attack on a parallelizable counter-mode algorithm. They induce the attack to classical DFA at the expense of one more fault injection in every encryption process. In this paper, we propose the DFA on HYENA, which is a nonce-based authenticated encryption mode for GIFT-128. Our work is the first pure classical DFA on a nonce-based authenticated encryption algorithm with only one fault injected in every decryption process. Firstly, we give the DFA on GIFT-128 with a fault injected into the 39th-round input. Based on this work, we inject a fault in the underlying GIFT-128 of a HYENA decryption process and make this decryption process still generate the correct tag and output plaintext. This makes the necessary conditions of DFA satisfied. Experiments show that at most 56 key bits of HYENA can be recovered with only a few faulty ciphertexts. In addition, our fault injection is easier to achieve than most other work about fault attack, because the injection location is relatively random and the fault type can be arbitrary. It should be noted that the left 72 key bits cannot be recovered in this way.

Differential fault attacks on the lightweight authenticated encryption algorithm CLX-128

Differential fault attacks on the lightweight authenticated encryption algorithm CLX-128

Exploiting statistical effective fault attack in a blind setting

AbstractIn order to obtain the secret key, the majority of physical attacks require knowledge of the plaintext or ciphertext, which may be unavailable or cannot be exploited. Blind attacks are introduced to do key recovery in circumstances where the adversary has no direct access to plaintext and ciphertext. A combination of fault and power attacks can circumvent typical countermeasures in this setting, for example, Fault Template Attack (FTA). However, FTA relies on bit fault injection, which is difficult to implement in practice. The SIFA‐blind, a framework for executing the Statistical Ineffective Fault Attack, is more flexible, but sensitivity to setup noise and missed faults is its main drawback. To address this deficiency, we suggest two ways to use Statistical Effective Fault Attack in a blind setting that are much less affected by missed faults and noise when measuring power traces, even though they do not use fault injection at the bit level. In order to demonstrate the viability and adaptability of our proposed attacks, we injected a fault via glitch frequency onto the ChipWhisperer board. While SEFA‐blind does not need a bit‐level fault, our results demonstrate that it is better than SIFA‐blind when the number of missed faults increases.

A faster method for fault attack resistance in static/ephemeral CSIDH

A faster method for fault attack resistance in static/ephemeral CSIDH

RAFA: Redundancies-assisted Algebraic Fault Analysis and its implementation on SPN block ciphers

Algebraic Fault Analysis (AFA) is a cryptanalysis for block ciphers proposed by Courtois et al., which incorporates algebraic cryptanalysis to overcome the complexity of manual analysis within the context of Differential Fault Analysis (DFA). The effectiveness of AFA on lightweight block ciphers has been demonstrated. However, the complexity of the algebraic systems prevents it from attacking heavyweight block ciphers efficiently. In this paper, we propose a novel cryptanalysis called Redundancies-assisted Algebraic Fault Analysis (RAFA) to facilitate the solution of algebraic systems in the setting of heavyweight block ciphers. The core idea of RAFA is to expedite SAT solvers by modifying the algebraic systems, which is accomplished via two methods. The first method introduces redundant constraints, which is proposed for the first time in the context of algebraic cryptanalysis. The second one is a sophisticated linearization of the nonlinear Algebraic Normal Form (ANF). It takes RAFA for about 9.68 hours to attack AES-128. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that uses a general SAT solver to attack AES with only a single injection of byte-fault. Moreover, RAFA can attack AES-128 in 50.92 and 27.54 minutes for nibble- and bit-based fault model, respectively. In comparison, the traditional DFA algorithm implemented by pure C takes 4 ~ 5 hours under all three fault models investigated in this work. Moreover, in order to show the generality of RAFA, we also apply it to other heavyweight block ciphers. The best results show that RAFA could recover the key of Serpent-256 and SPEEDY-r-192 in 20.7 and 1.5 hours using only three faults, respectively. In comparison, AFA could not break these two ciphers even when 30 bits and 50 bits of their keys are known, respectively. Furthermore, no DFA work on Serpent or SPEEDY is known using comparable fault models.

Meet-in-the-Middle Differential Fault Analysis on ITUbee Block Cipher

Differential fault analysis (DFA) was introduced by Biham and Shamir. It is a powerful analysis technique to retrieve the secret key by injecting fault into an internal state and utilizing the differences between the correct ciphertexts and the faulty ciphertexts. Based on the idea of meet-in-the-middle, some differential characters can help to recover the key of some symmetric ciphers. At CHES 2011, this technique was utilized to give analyses on AES. In this article, we propose several DFA schemes on ITUbee, a software-oriented block symmetric cipher for resource-constrained devices based on the meet-in-the-middle idea. Our attacks are efficient enough and more powerful than previous works. Furthermore, the attacks in this article break the protection countermeasure, meaning we have to review the protection method on devices for ITUbee.

High-Speed Hardware Architecture Based on Error Detection for KECCAK.

The hash function KECCAK integrity algorithm is implemented in cryptographic systems to provide high security for any circuit requiring integrity and protect the transmitted data. Fault attacks, which can extricate confidential data, are one of the most effective physical attacks against KECCAK hardware. Several KECCAK fault detection systems have been proposed to counteract fault attacks. The present research proposes a modified KECCAK architecture and scrambling algorithm to protect against fault injection attacks. Thus, the KECCAK round is modified so that it consists of two parts with input and pipeline registers. The scheme is independent of the KECCAK design. Iterative and pipeline designs are both protected by it. To test the resilience of the suggested detection system approach fault attacks, we conduct permanent as well as transient fault attacks, and we evaluate the fault detection capabilities (99.9999% for transient faults and 99.999905% for permanent faults). The KECCAK fault detection scheme is modeled using VHDL language and implemented on an FPGA hardware board. The experimental results show that our technique effectively secures the KECCAK design. It can be carried out with little difficulty. In addition, the experimental FPGA results demonstrate the proposed KECCAK detection scheme's low area burden, high efficiency and working frequency.

Learn from Your Faults: Leakage Assessment in Fault Attacks Using Deep Learning

Learn from Your Faults: Leakage Assessment in Fault Attacks Using Deep Learning

Meet‐in‐the‐middle attacks on round‐reduced CRAFT based on automatic search

AbstractCRAFT is a lightweight block cipher designed by Beierle et al. to effectively resist differential fault attacks at fast software encryption 2019. In this article, Demirci‐Selçuk meet‐in‐the‐middle (DS‐MITM) attacks on round‐reduced CRAFT based on automatic search are proposed. A DS‐MITM automatic search model for CRAFT was constructed, and then, the automatic search model was used to detect a 9‐round DS‐MITM distinguisher. The strong relations between the round‐subtweakeys were observed and the key‐dependent sieve technique was adopted to reduce the memory complexity of the attack. Based on the 9‐round distinguisher, a 19‐round DS‐MITM attack can be presented. Due to the strong key relations, the time complexity can be reduced by the key‐bridging technique and the equivalent round‐subtweakey. The time complexity of the 19‐round DS‐MITM attack is 2114.68 19‐round CRAFT encryption, the data complexity is 256 chosen plaintexts, and the memory complexity is 2109 64‐bit blocks. Adding one round to the end of the 19‐round DS‐MITM attack, a 20‐round DS‐MITM attack can be proposed. The time complexity of the 20‐round attack is 2126.94 20‐round CRAFT encryption, the data complexity is 256 chosen plaintexts, and the memory complexity is 2109 64‐bit blocks.

Template attack based on uBlock cipher algorithm

The uBlock cipher algorithm is a family of lightweight block cipher algorithms, which was proposed by Wu Wenling, Zhang Lei and others in 2019. Its block length and key length support 128 and 256 bits. It has certain flexibility in different environments to meet the application of algorithms in different software and hardware conditions. At present, the research of side channel attack against uBlock cipher algorithm is mainly differential fault analysis. In order to explore the application of template attack against uBlock cipher algorithm analysis attack, a template attack method against uBlock cipher algorithm is proposed. When constructing the template, the S-box output of uBlock cipher algorithm is selected as the attack point of energy analysis, and the Hamming weight is used as the analysis model to build the template about S-box output.

FaultMeter: Quantitative Fault Attack Assessment of Block Cipher Software

Fault attacks are a potent class of physical attacks that exploit a fault njected during device operation to steal secret keys from a cryptographic device. The success of a fault attack depends intricately on (a) the cryptographic properties of the cipher, (b) the program structure, and (c) the underlying hardware architecture. While there are several tools that automate the process of fault attack evaluation, none of them consider all three influencing aspects.This paper proposes a framework called FaultMeter that builds on the state-of-art by not just identifying fault vulnerable locations in a block cipher software, but also providing a quantification for each vulnerable location. The quantification provides a probability that an injected fault can be successfully exploited. It takes into consideration the cryptographic properties of the cipher, structure of the implementation, and the underlying Instruction Set Architecture’s (ISA) susceptibility to faults. We demonstrate an application of FaultMeter to automatically insert optimal amounts of countermeasures in a program to meet the user’s security requirements while minimizing overheads. We demonstrate the versatility of the FaultMeter framework by evaluating five cipher implementations on multiple hardware platforms, namely, ARM (32 and 64 bit), RISC-V (32 and 64 bit), TI MSP-430 (16-bit) and Intel x86 (64-bit).

Fiddling the Twiddle Constants - Fault Injection Analysis of the Number Theoretic Transform

In this work, we present the first fault injection analysis of the Number Theoretic Transform (NTT). The NTT is an integral computation unit, widely used for polynomial multiplication in several structured lattice-based key encapsulation mechanisms (KEMs) and digital signature schemes. We identify a critical single fault vulnerability in the NTT, which severely reduces the entropy of its output. This in turn enables us to perform a wide-range of attacks applicable to lattice-based KEMs as well as signature schemes. In particular, we demonstrate novel key recovery and message recovery attacks targeting the key generation and encryption procedure of Kyber KEM. We also propose novel existential forgery attacks targeting deterministic and probabilistic signing procedure of Dilithium, followed by a novel verification bypass attack targeting its verification procedure. All proposed exploits are demonstrated with high success rate using electromagnetic fault injection on optimized implementations of Kyber and Dilithium, from the open-source pqm4 library on the ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller. We also demonstrate that our proposed attacks are capable of bypassing concrete countermeasures against existing fault attacks on lattice-based KEMs and signature schemes. We believe our work motivates the need for more research towards development of countermeasures for the NTT against fault injection attacks.

A Combined Countermeasure Against Side-Channel and Fault Attack with Threshold Implementation Technique

A Combined Countermeasure Against Side-Channel and Fault Attack with Threshold Implementation Technique

Generalized Code-Abiding Countermeasure

The widely used countermeasures against fault attacks are based on spatial, temporal, or information redundancy. This type of solution is very efficient, but it can be very expensive in terms of implementation cost. Thus, trying to propose a secure and efficient countermeasure for a lightweight cipher is a hard challenge, as the goal of a lightweight cipher is to be the lightest possible. This paper considers information redundancy based on parity bit code, with code-abiding transformations of the operations. This error detection code, with the code-abiding notion added, is very efficient against single fault injection and has a small overcost. The solution is tested on the LED lightweight cipher to measure its overhead. Moreover, a bitslice version of the cipher is used with the parity bit code applied to be robust against all the single-word fault injections. The challenge is to adapt the cipher functions in a way in which the parity bit is always considered, but without considering a heavy implementation. The advantage of our solution is that this countermeasure leads to a 100% fault coverage, with a reasonable overhead.

(Adversarial) Electromagnetic Disturbance in the Industry

Faults occur naturally and are responsible for reliability concerns. Faults are also an interesting tool for attackers to extract sensitive information from secure chips. In particular, non-invasive fault attacks have received a fair amount of attention. One easy way to perturb a chip without altering it is the so-called Electromagnetic Fault Injection (EMFI). Such attack has been studied in great depth, and nowadays, it is part and parcel of the state-of-the-art. Indeed, new capabilities have emerged where EM experimental benches are used to cryptanalyze chips. The progress of this “field” is fast, in terms of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">reproducibility</i> , <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">accuracy</i> , and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">number of use-cases</i> . However, there is too little awareness about such advances. In this paper, we aim to expose the true harmfulness of EMFI (including reproducibility) to enable reasonable security quotations. We also analyze protections (at hardware/firmware/system levels) in light of their efficiency. We characterize the specificity of EM fault injection compared to other injection means (laser, glitch, probing).

Protecting integrated circuits against side-channel and fault attacks with dynamic encoding

With the Internet of Things, an increasing amount of sensitive data have to be communicated and hence encrypted. Low-cost hardware attacks such as fault analysis or side-channel analysis threaten the implementation of cryptographic algorithms. Many countermeasures have been proposed against either of these attacks, however, only a few countermeasures protect efficiently an implementation against both attacks. These joint countermeasures usually have a prohibitive area and power overhead, and require up to thousands of bits of fresh randomness at each encryption. Therefore, they may not be suited to protect lightweight algorithms in resource-constrained devices. In this paper, we propose a new joint countermeasure against both attacks, called dynamic encoding. It has a smaller power and area overhead than existing joint countermeasures and requires at most 8 random bits at each encryption. It is particularly adapted to protect sequential logic and lightweight algorithms based on shift registers, and it can be extended to protect combinational logic as well. It consists in a power balancing at algorithmic level and provides an inherent fault detection. Simulations with several levels of noise indicate that dynamic encoding provides an efficient protection against side-channel analysis with up to 100,000 traces.

Guest Editorial: Selected papers from the 24th International Conference on Information Security and Cryptology (ICISC 2021)

Guest Editorial: Selected papers from the 24th International Conference on Information Security and Cryptology (ICISC 2021)

Meet-in-the-middle differential fault analysis on Midori

&lt;abstract&gt;&lt;p&gt;Midori is a lightweight block cipher designed by Banik et al. and presented at the ASIACRYPT 2015 conference. According to the block size, it consists of two algorithms, denoted as Midori-64 and Midori-128. Midori generates 8-bit S-Boxes from 4-bit S-Boxes and applies almost MDS matrices instead of MDS matrices. In this paper, we introduce the meet-in-the-middle fault attack model in the 4-round cell-oriented fault propagation trail and reduce the key space in the last round by $ 2^{45.71} $ and $ 2^{39.86} $ for Midori-64 and Midori-128, respectively. For Midori-64, we reduce the time complexity from $ 2^{80} $ to $ 2^{28} $, $ 2^{32} $ and $ 2^{56} $ for the different single fault injection approaches. For Midori-128, we provide a 4-round fault attack method, which slightly increases the complexity compared to previous attacks. Our results indicate that the first and last four rounds of Midori must be protected to achieve its security.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/abstract&gt;

Fault Attacks on Access Control in Processors: Threat, Formal Analysis and Microarchitectural Mitigation

Fault Attacks on Access Control in Processors: Threat, Formal Analysis and Microarchitectural Mitigation