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USENIX Technical Program - Abstract - Smartcard 99
Investigations of Power Analysis Attacks on Smartcards
Thomas S. Messerges and Ezzy A. Dabbish, Motorola Labs; Robert H. Sloan, University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract
This paper presents actual results from monitoring
smartcard power signals and introduces techniques that help maximize such
side-channel information. Adversaries will obviously choose attacks that
maximize side-channel information, so it is very important that the strongest
attacks be considered when designing defensive strategies. In this paper,
power analysis techniques used to attack DES are reviewed and analyzed.
The noise characteristics of the power signals are examined and an approach
to model the signal to noise ratio is proposed. Test results from monitoring
power signals are provided. Next, approaches to maximize the information
content of the power signals are developed and tested. These results provide
guidance for designing smartcard solutions that are secure against power
analysis attacks.
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Technical Program