Electromagnetic Side-Channel Attack Resilience against PRESENT Lightweight Block Cipher

TL;DR

This paper investigates the effectiveness of electromagnetic side-channel analysis, specifically correlation electromagnetic analysis (CEMA), against the PRESENT lightweight block cipher to assess its vulnerability in IoT devices.

Contribution

It provides the first known CEMA analysis of PRESENT, demonstrating its potential vulnerability to electromagnetic side-channel attacks in resource-constrained environments.

Findings

CEMA can potentially leak seven bytes of the secret key.

Initial simple EM analysis was successfully extended to a correlation analysis.

The methodology paves the way for further optimization and stronger security assessments.

Abstract

Lightweight cryptography is a novel diversion from conventional cryptography that targets internet-of-things (IoT) platform due to resource constraints. In comparison, it offers smaller cryptographic primitives such as shorter key sizes, block sizes and lesser energy drainage. The main focus can be seen in algorithm developments in this emerging subject. Thus, verification is carried out based upon theoretical (mathematical) proofs mostly. Among the few available side-channel analysis studies found in literature, the highest percentage is taken by power attacks. PRESENT is a promising lightweight block cipher to be included in IoT devices in the near future. Thus, the emphasis of this paper is on lightweight cryptology, and our investigation shows unavailability of a correlation electromagnetic analysis (CEMA) of it. Hence, in an effort to fill in this research gap, we opted to investigate the capabilities of CEMA against the PRESENT algorithm. This work aims to determine the probability of secret key leakage with a minimum number of electromagnetic (EM) waveforms possible. The process initially started from a simple EM analysis (SEMA) and gradually enhanced up to a CEMA. This paper presents our methodology in attack modelling, current results that indicate a probability of leaking seven bytes of the key and upcoming plans for optimisation. In addition, introductions to lightweight cryptanalysis and theories of EMA are also included.