Spatial EM jamming: A countermeasure against EM Analysis?

Electro-Magnetic Analysis has been identified as an efficient technique to retrieve the secret key of cryptographic algorithms. Although similar mathematically speaking, Power or Electro-Magnetic Analysis have different advantages in practice. Among the advantages of EM Analysis, the feasibility of attacking limited and bounded area of integrated systems is the key one. Within this context, the contribution of this paper is a countermeasure against local EM attack performed with tiny magnetic probes. The basic idea is to design circuits such that all datapaths and D-type Flip-Flops, involved in the computation of intermediate values of cryptographic elements, randomly change within a set of logically equivalent electrical paths that are spatially distributed within the Integrated Circuit (IC) die.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: VLSI
• Authors: Francois Poucheret, Lyonel Barthe, Pascal Benoit, Lionel Torres, Philippe Maurine, Michel Robert
• Keywords: Electro-Magnetic Analysis, Similar Mathematically Speaking, Software Engineering, Tiny Magnetic Probes, VLSI 2010