High-resolution side-channel attack using phase-based waveform matching

Abstract

This paper describes high-resolution waveform matching based on aPhase-Only Correlation (POC) technique and its application for a side-channel attack. Such attacks, such as Simple Power Analysis (SPA) and Differential Power Analysis (DPA), use a statistical analysis of signal waveforms (e.g., power traces) to reduce noise and to retrieve secret information. However, the waveform data often includes displacement errors in the measurements. The use of phase components in the discrete Fourier transforms of the waveforms makes it possible to estimate the displacements between the signal waveforms with higher resolution than the sampling resolution. The accuracy of a side-channel attack can be enhanced using this high-resolution matching method. In this paper, we demonstrate the advantages of the POC-based method in comparison with conventional approaches through experimental DPA and Differential ElectroMagnetic Analysis (DEMA) against a DES software implementation on a Z80 processor. © International Association for Cryptologic Research 2006.