Power, EM and all that:

Is your crypto device really

secure?
Pankaj Rohatgi
Dakshi Agrawal, Bruce Archambeault, Suresh Chari,
Josyula R Rao
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
 Side-Channel Analysis:
Some recent advances
• I: A new side channel: EM emanations
– Extends power analysis style attacks to large
classes of cryptographic hardware
• SSL Accelerators, Cryptographic tokens.
– Additional leakages compared to power.
• II: Better Analysis: Template Attacks.
– (Near) optimal use of side-channel data.
– Single sample attacks for ephemeral keys.
 EM History
• Classified TEMPEST standards.
– Partly declassified Jan '01, http://www.cryptome.org .
• Other, openly published work on EM.
– EM Leakages from Peripherals,
• E.g., Monitors: Van Eck, Anderson & Kuhn.
– EM Leakage from smart-cards during computation.
• Quisquater & Samyde, E-smart 2001, Gemplus Team [GMO ’01],
CHES ’01.
– SEMA/DEMA attacks.
• Best results required decapsulation of chip packaging and/or
precise micro-antenna positioning on chip surface
 Our EM Work
• Deeper understanding of EM leakages.
– Similar to now declassified TEMPEST literature.
• Plenty of EM signals are available, provided you know
what to look for and where.
– Superior signals and attacks possible without micro-
antennas or decapsulation.
– Some attacks possible from a distance.
• EM side-channel(s) >> Power side-channel
• EM can break DPA-resistant implementations.
 EM Emanations Background
• Types of EM Emanations
– Direct emanations from intended current flows.
• Maxwell’s equations, Ampere’s and Faraday’s laws.
• See [Quisquater,Samyde 01], Gemplus [GMO ’01]
– Unintentional emanations from coupling
effects.
• Depend on physical factors, e.g., circuit geometry.
• Most couplings ignored by circuit designers.
• Manifest as modulation of carriers (e.g. clock
harmonics) present/generated/introduced in device.
– AM or Angle (FM/Phase) Modulation.
• Compromising signals available via demodulation.
 AM: Example 1
• ECCLib on 16Mhz Palm Pilot.
– Posted on Internet by Feng Zhu, Northeastern Univ.
• Point multiplication (k * P) on a Koblitz curve
over GF[2^163] using Solinas’s technique.
– Doubling replaced by Frobenius Map ()
k = si i (-adic NAF decomposition) si {0,1,-1}
– Cost of kP ~ |k|/3 ~ 54 point additions/subtractions,
• Structure can be heard in demo
• Good signal via AM demodulation at 241Mhz.
Map/(Add/Subtract) Sequence
3 successive Frobenius Map computations
Point Add/Sub
Comparing two different point
addition/subraction
 AM: Example 2
• PCI-bus based RSA Accelerator S
inside a Intel/Linux server.
• Multiple AM modulated carriers.
– Several carriers at clock harmonics propogate
upto 50 feet and through walls.
• Precise RSA timing available at 50 feet.
 Precise Timing (SSL Music)
• S looping with ~3s each of
–512-bit RSA
–1024-bit RSA
–2048-bit RSA
–4096-bit RSA

• Music can be heard 50 feet away by AM-

demodulating 299MHz clock harmonic
carrier.
• Enables better timing attacks.
 RSA Internals in S
• AM-demodulating an intermodulated
carrier at 461.4 Mhz, bandwidth 150Khz.
• Clear signal available upto 3-4 feet.
– Further distance requires statistical techniques.
• Large class of attack techniques applicable.
– Such techniques earlier restricted to power
analysis attacks on RSA in smart-cards.
S: Two identical 2048-bit exponentiations with 12-bit exponent.

Data/Modulus Data &

Dependent Key Dependent
Initialization Exponentiation
S: Initialization (Fixed modulus, 2 exponents X 2 data)

E1, D2
E2, D2

E1, D1
E2, D1
S: Data and Key Dependent Exponentiation (2 exponents X 2 data)
 Angle Modulation: Example 1
• PCI based RSA/Crypto Accelerator R
inside an Intel/Linux server.
• AM-demodulate a 99Mhz carrier (clock
harmonic).
R performing an RSA operation in a loop
Internals of RSA Exponentiation in R with small exponent

Data/Modulus Key & Data

Dependent Dependent
Initialization Exponentiation
RSA Exponentiation Key/Data Dependent Internals

Obscured by interfering signal G

GENERATED asynchronously during operation
 Can we get RSA internals ?

• Not directly….
• But, timing of asynchronously generated G
affected by ongoing computation due to
coupling effects.
– Timing statistics of G (using ~1000 samples)
gives information about internals!!
– G strong enough to be captured at 10-15 feet.
G: Timing Statistics of G for fixed modulus, 3 exponents (2 same)
 EM vs. Power
• EM may be only side-channel available.
• Is EM useful in the presence of power channel?
– Direct emanations: micro-sensor positioning,
decorrelated noise [QS01, GMO 01]
– Unintended emanations: Several EM carriers:
• DEMA/DPA correlation plots show extent of leakage from
different EM carriers & comparison with power signal.
– Different carriers carry different information.
– Some EM leakages substantially different/better than Power
leakages.
4 Time Synchronized DPA/DEMA Correlation Plots
4 Time Synchronized DPA/DEMA Correlation Plots
 Bad Instructions
• Instructions where some EM leakage >> Power
leakage.
• Typically CPU intensive rather than bus intensive.
• All architectures have BAD Instructions.
• Caution: Bad Instructions can break power
analysis resistant implementations.
• Bad Instruction Example: Bit-test on several 6805
based systems leaks tested bit.
TESTED BIT = 0 IN BOTH TRACES

O
 O
TESTED BIT
DIFFERENT
 Part II: Template Attacks
• Sometimes a single (few) side-channel sample available.
– Stream ciphers, Ephemeral keys.
– “System Level Countermeasures” to side channel attacks.
• Higher level protocols limit key usage.
• Non-linear key update countermeasure (Kocher et al [KJJ ’99]).
• Are these inherently immune to side-channel attacks?
– Immune to traditional simple/differential attacks
• Easy to secure implementations against SPA/SEMA
– Ensure signal differences < noise level.
• DPA/DEMA and higher order DPA/DEMA inapplicable.
– Cannot remove noise by averaging over multiple samples.
– Not against Template Attacks (with some assumptions).
 Example: RC4 on a smart-card
• At best, single trace during RC4 state
initialization with ephemeral key available.
i= j = 0; • Can avoid SPA.
for (ctr=0;ctr < 256; ctr++) • No DPA style attack possible.
{ • One key byte used per iteration.
j = key[i] + state[ctr] + j; • Is a single sample enough to
SwapByte(state[ctr], recover the whole key ?
state[j] ); • Can two fixed keys different in
i=i+1; 1st byte be distinguished during
} 1st iteration ?
Power Sample showing 6 iterations of loop
Sample = Signal + Noise
 Signals (and signal difference) for two
fixed keys with different first byte

Differences start DIFFUSION

in first iteration
(Contamination)
Signals difference for the two fixed keys with different first
byte during first iteration of loop (CONTAMINATION)

{
j = key[i] +
state[ctr] + j;
SwapByte(state[ctr],
state[j] );
i=i+1;
}
Sample noise vs. Signal differences (6 iterations)
Sample noise vs. Signal difference in first iteration
 Template Attack Basics: How to
distinguish between the two keys ?
• Don’t (cannot) eliminate sample noise, use it!
• How ?
• Use identical device (assumption) for building signal and
noise templates T1 and T2 for keys K1 and K2 in 1st
iteration.
• T1 = {s1(t), 1(t) }, T2= {s2(t), 2(t) }
• Given sample S = s(t) use theoretically optimal maximum
likelihood estimator:
• Which noise is more likely ? s(t)-s1(t) under 1(t)
OR
s(t)-s2(t) under 2(t)
 Theory vs. Practice
• Need T1 = {s1(t), 1(t) }, T2= {s2(t), 2(t) }
• s1(t), s2(t) easily estimated by averaging.
• What about 1(t) and 2(t) ?
– Can be restricted to L sample points where s1(t) and
s2(t) differ, e.g., L=42 in example.
– Still infeasible to estimate a general probability dist.
over L.
– Borrow from the large body of work in Signal
Detection and Estimation Theory which deals with
precisely this problem!
• Several realistic and computable noise models available.
• We used the popular Multivariate Gaussian Noise model
Mutivariate Gaussian Noise Model

• Estimating 1(t), 2(t) reduces to estimating

LxL noise covariance matrices L:1 and L:2 for
keys K1 and K2
• Maximum Likelihood test easy, matrix inverse/
multiplication/determinant and taking logs.
 Generalization and Results
Technique generalizes to multiple choices for first key byte:
E.g., among these 10 key bytes, correct classification probability:

Key 0xFE 0xEE 0xDE 0xBE 0x7E 0xFD 0xFB 0xF7 0xED 0xEB
byte
98.62 98.34 99.16 98.14 99.58 99.70 99.64 100 99.76 99.94

• These 10 keys deliberately chosen to be very close.

– Widely different keys easily separated with 100% success even with
weaker noise models.
• Estimated that only a 5-6% error probability in identifying
the correct 1st byte out of 256 possibilities.
 Attacking multi-byte keys
• 5-6% error in identifying single byte is too
much.
• Maximum Likelihood: Retains hypothesis with
max probability for observed noise (Pmax)
• Approximate Approach: Retain ALL hypotheses
with noise probability > (Pmax/c), c constant.
• Tradeoff between number of hypothesis
retained and correctness.
 Approximate Approach Tradeoff

c=1 c=e6 c=e12 c=e24

Success 95.02 98.67 99.37 99.65
probability
(retaining correct
byte hypothesis
out of 256)
Avg. number 1 1.29 2.11 6.89
of hypothesis
retained
Attacking Multi-byte Keys: Extend and Prune

• Base case: Narrow candidates for first byte to a small

number (e.g., on average 1.3 possibilities with 98.67%
correctness for c=e6 )
• Assume Ti candidates for first i key bytes.
– Extend: For each candidate, build larger templates for all 256
possible values of next byte.
– Prune: Use approximate approach to reduce 256 T i candidates
down to Ti+1 < 1.3 * Ti (diffusion).
• Tedious but feasible for reasonable sized keys.
– N bytes: Failure probability 1.33N% (N=16, failure prob.= 21.5%)
– Number of remaining candidates < 1.3^N (N=16, candidates < 67)
For more information on topics such as
–Multiple EM/Power channel attack techniques.
–EM vulnerability assessment
see
http://www.research.ibm.com/intsec
&
Upcoming CHES 2003.

Questions?