Securing the PRESENT Block Cipher Against Combined Side-Channel Analysis and Fault Attacks

Abstract

In this paper, we present and evaluate a hardware implementation of the PRESENT block cipher secured against both side-channel analysis and fault attacks (FAs). The side-channel security is provided by the first-order threshold implementation masking scheme of the serialized PRESENT proposed by Poschmann et al. For the FA resistance, we employ the Private Circuits II countermeasure presented by Ishai et al. at Eurocrypt 2006, which we tailor to resist arbitrary 1-bit faults. We perform a side-channel evaluation using the state-of-the-art leakage detection tests, quantify the resource overhead of the Private Circuits II countermeasure, subdue the implementation to established differential FAs against the PRESENT block cipher, and contemplate on the structural resistance of the countermeasure. This paper provides the detailed instructions on how to successfully achieve a secure Private Circuits II implementation for the data path as well as the control logic.