Generic Side-Channel Countermeasures for Reconfigurable Devices

In this work, we propose and evaluate generic hardware countermeasures against DPA attacks for recent FPGA devices. The proposed set of FPGA-specific countermeasures can be combined to resist a large variety of first-order DPA attacks, even with 100 million recorded power traces. This set includes generic and resource-efficient countermeasures for on-chip noise generation, random-data processing delays and S-box scrambling using dual-ported block memories. In particular, it is possible to build many of these countermeasures into a single IP-core or hard macro that then provides basic protection for any cryptographic implementation just by its inclusion in the design process – what is particularly useful for engineers with no or little background on IT security and SCA attacks.