IPA: A new class of power attacks

Abstract

We present Inferential Power Analysis (IPA), a new class of attacks based on power analysis. An IPA attack has two stages: a profiling stage and a key extraction stage. In the profiling stage, intratrace differencing, averaging, and other statistical operations are performed on a large number of power traces to learn details of the implementation, leading to the location and identification of key bits. In the key extraction stage, the key is obtained from a very few power traces; we have successfully extracted keys from a single trace. Compared to differential power analysis, IPA has the advantages that the attacker does not need either plaintext or ciphertext, and that, in the key extraction stage, a key can be obtained from a small number of traces.