Enabling Gem5 for Side-Channel Power Attack Simulation of Cryptographic Algorithms

Abstract

Secure communication between devices is paramount in the modern, increasingly connected world. Especially in the automotive field, the rapidly increasing inter- and intra-vehicle communication requires encryption to ensure safe driving and confidentiality of user data. Mathematically secure encryption algorithms have been developed. But in practice, being mathematically secure is not enough. Execution on real hardware leads to physical emanations like power, electromagnetic, or timing variations. Side-channel attacks exploit these emanations to discover secrets, like encryption keys. Hence, for secure communication, robustness against side-channel attacks is mandatory. Evaluating the robustness of cryptography algorithms and countermeasures against side-channel attacks needs encryption hardware and additional equipment, e.g., to measure power or electromagnetic emanations. However, neither is always available and commonly requires a complex and expensive setup. Virtual Prototypes, which enable high-speed full-system simulation and software debugging even before RTL is available, can perfectly fulfill this gap. In our work, we focus on power side-channel attack simulation. We enable their simulation in the well-known simulator gem5, integrating power modeling for power measurements. To evaluate our work, we implemented DES and RSA cryptography algorithms and showed successful execution of Differential Power Analysis (DPA) power side-channel attacks on them in gem5. Our proposed approach enables the evaluation of side-channel attack robustness quickly without requiring complex setups and encryption hardware. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach successfully enabling power side-channel attack simulation on gem5, extending its application scenario in the security domain.