Implementing virtual secure circuit using a custom-instruction approach

Although cryptographic algorithms are designed to resist at least thousands of years of cryptoanalysis, implementing them with either software or hardware usually leaks additional information which may enable the attackers to break the cryptographic systems within days. A Side Channel Attack (SCA) is such a kind of attack that breaks a security system at a low cost within a short time. SCA uses sidechannel leakage, such as the cryptographic implementations' execution time, power dissipation and magnetic radiation. This paper presents a countermeasure to protect softwarebased cryptography from SCA by emulating the behavior of the secure hardware circuits. The emulation is done by introducing two simple complementary instructions to the processor and applying a secure programming style. We call the resulting secure software program a Virtual Secure Circuit (VSC). VSC inherits the idea of a secure logic circuit, a hardware SCA countermeasure. It not only maintains the secure circuit...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: CASES
• Authors: Zhimin Chen, Ambuj Sinha, Patrick Schaumont
• Keywords: CASES 2010, Secure Circuit, Secure Hardware Circuits, System Software, Virtual Secure Circuit