EO-Shield: A Shield-Based Protection Scheme Against Both Invasive and Non-Invasive Attacks

Smart devices, especially Internet-connected devices, typically incorporate security protocols and cryptographic algorithms to ensure the control flow integrity and information security. However, various types of attacks try to tamper with these devices, including invasive and non-invasive. Chip-level shields have been proven effective against invasive attacks, but the potential of shields as a protection mechanism against side-channel analysis (SCA) attacks remains under-explored. To bridge this gap, we propose a shield-based multi-functional protection scheme, named, capable of simultaneously thwarting invasive and non-invasive attacks. is implemented using the chip’s top metal layer and includes an Information Leakage Obfuscation Module (ILOM) underneath. This module generates its protection patterns based on the operating conditions of the circuit that need to be protected, thus reducing the correlation between electromagnetic (EM) emanations and cryptographic data. Additionally, we introduce a simulation technique to test the protection efficacy of at the layout level, utilizing commercial Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools and the EMSim/EMSim
$+$
tool. Simulation experiments demonstrate that the ILOM decreases the signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio to below
$0.6$
and improves the difficulty of SCA attacks by more than
$100$
times. Compared to existing single-function protection methods against physical attacks, leverages the EM protection potential of shields to offer multi-functional protection.