Abstract: Embedded devices are highly vulnerable to a class of side-channel attacks known as Differential Fault Analysis (DFA). These attacks induce precisely timed and placed faults to retrieve secret information from devices. For instance, breaking encryption algorithms like the AES takes a few seconds and only needs a single fault. Naively protecting these devices incur huge overheads, while applying optimized countermeasures is laborious and requires considerable knowledge about the attacks. In this talk, we will first introduce Differential Fault Attacks on Block ciphers and demonstrate how the secret key can be obtained within a few minutes. We show how the position of the fault can influence the potency of the fault attack. We then present our efforts at designing automated tools that can identify and vulnerable operations in a cipher. These tools can be incorporated in compilers and during hardware design to synthesize secure block cipher implementations.
The slide is available here