Influence of Error on Hamming Weights for ASCA

Abstract

Algebraic Side-Channel Attack (ASCA) models the cryptographic algorithm and side-channel leakage from the system as a set of equations and solves for the secret key. The attack has low data complexity and can succeed in unknown plaintext/ciphertext scenarios. However, it is susceptible to error and the complexity of the model may drastically increase the runtime as well as the memory consumption. In this paper, we explore the attack by examining the importance of various Hamming weights in terms of success of the attack, which also allows us to gain insights into possible areas of focus for countermeasures, as well as successfully launch ASCA on AES with a larger error tolerance.