On the development of a new countermeasure based on a laser attack RTL fault model

Secure integrated circuits that implement cryptographic algorithms (e.g., AES) require protection against laser attacks. The goal of such attacks is to inject errors during the computation and then use these errors to retrieve the secret key. Laser attacks can produce single or multiple-bit errors, but have a local and usually transient impact in the circuit. In order to detect such attacks, countermeasures must take into account the circuit implementation. This paper proposes a countermeasure implemented at the Register Transfer Level (RTL) according to a previously proposed laser attack RTL fault model. Efficiency of the implemented countermeasure is evaluated on a case study in terms of area overhead, error detection rates at RTL and fault detection capabilities with respect to layout information.