Low Trace-Count Template Attacks on 32-bit Implementations of ASCON AEAD

Authors

  • Shih-Chun You University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • Markus G. Kuhn University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • Sumanta Sarkar University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
  • Feng Hao University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46586/tches.v2023.i4.344-366

Keywords:

ASCON, power analysis, template attack, SASCA

Abstract

The recently adopted Ascon standard by NIST offers a lightweight authenticated encryption algorithm for use in resource-constrained cryptographic devices. To help assess side-channel attack risks of Ascon implementations, we present the first template attack based on analyzing power traces, recorded from an STM32F303 microcontroller board running Weatherley’s 32-bit implementations of Ascon-128. Our analysis combines a fragment template attack with belief-propagation and key-enumeration techniques. The main results are three-fold: (1) we reached 100% success rate from a single trace if the C compiler optimized the unmasked implementation for space, (2) the success rate was about 95% after three traces if the compiler optimized instead for time, and (3) we also attacked a masked version, where the success rate was over 90% with 20 traces of executions with the same key, all after enumerating up to 224 key candidates. These results show that suitably-designed template attacks can pose a real threat to Ascon implementations, even if protected by first-order masking, but we also learnt how some differences in programming style, and even compiler optimization settings, can significantly affect the result.

Downloads

Published

2023-08-31

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Low Trace-Count Template Attacks on 32-bit Implementations of ASCON AEAD. (2023). IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 2023(4), 344-366. https://doi.org/10.46586/tches.v2023.i4.344-366