Early analysis of fault-attack effects for cryptographic hardware

International audience

The security of a lot of applications relies nowadays on cryptographic primitives implemented in hardware. Various types of attacks are known on such systems, one of the most recent being based on the injection of faults directly inside the circuits, for example using a laser. Such fault-attacks can allow a hacker to observe abnormal behaviors, from which secret data can be inferred. Due to these threats, it becomes necessary to analyze very early, during the circuit design, the potential impact of faults in order to implement protections that avoid security flaws, while keeping the overheads to a minimum. Dependability analysis environments have been developed to analyze the effect of "natural" faults, for example those induced by particles in space. This paper discusses the similarities and differences between the two types of application areas, and concludes on extensions required to cover security-related constraints.