Comparison of electromagnetic side-channel energy available to the attacker from different computer systems

This paper evaluates electromagnetic (EM) side-channel energy (ESE) available to the attacker from several different computer systems. In particular, we present measured ESE for several common instructions executed on a laptop, a desktop, and an FPGA at several different frequencies. The results sho...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Callan, Robert, Popovic, Nina, Daruna, Angel, Pollmann, Eric, Zajic, Alenka, Prvulovic, Milos
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric measurements
Computer programs
Design engineering
Developers
Electromagnetic compatibility
Electromagnetics
Energy measurement
Field programmable gate arrays
Frequency measurement
Laptop
Microprocessors
Portable computers
Software
Trends
Online Access:Request full text
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Description
Summary:This paper evaluates electromagnetic (EM) side-channel energy (ESE) available to the attacker from several different computer systems. In particular, we present measured ESE for several common instructions executed on a laptop, a desktop, and an FPGA at several different frequencies. The results show that ESE measurements are repeatable across a range of frequencies, and that similar frequencies result in similar ESE. While FPGA ESE is smaller than desktop or laptop ESE, similar trends are found between all three systems. The presented results can be useful to computer designers who wish to find out which parts of the design are most susceptible to EM side-channel vulnerabilities, and to software developers who need to know which variations in program behavior are most likely to allow successful side-channel attacks, especially for behaviors that are consistently vulnerable across processor generations and across processor manufacturers.
ISSN:2158-110X
2158-1118
DOI:10.1109/ISEMC.2015.7256162