Glitch it if you can: Parameter search strategies for successful fault injection

Abstract

Fault analysis poses a serious threat to embedded security devices, especially smart cards. In particular, modeling faults and finding effective practical approaches that are also generic is considered to be of interest for smart card industry. In this work we propose a novel methodology to deal with a difficult question of choosing multiple parameters required for effective faults. To this aim, we investigate several algorithms and find a new promising direction using evolutionary computation. Our experimental results on some of the smart cards used today show the potential of this new approach. Our best algorithm is a tailored search strategy especially developed for the purpose of finding the best choice of parameters for glitching. With this approach we found some of off-the-shelf devices, although secured against this type of attacks, still vulnerable. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.