Correlation Power Analysis Attack Resisted Cryptographic RISC-V SoC With Random Dynamic Frequency Scaling Countermeasure

Cryptographic System-on-Chips (SoCs) are becoming more and more popular. In these systems, cryptographic accelerators are integrated with processor cores to provide users with the software’s flexibility and hardware’s high performance. First, this work aimed to confirm the vulnerability of cryptographic SoCs against several types of power analysis attacks. Then, the novel Random Dynamic Frequency Scaling (RDFS) countermeasure is proposed to improve the resistance of such systems. The proposed RDFS countermeasure improved the power analysis resistance while maintaining low-performance overhead and hardware costs by generating more than 219,000 distinct frequencies for driving only the cryptographic accelerators. The effectiveness of the proposed RDFS countermeasure is demonstrated by conducting realistic Correlation Power Analysis (CPA) attacks, Deep-Learning-based Side-Channel Analysis (DL-SCA) attacks, and Test Vector Leakage Assessment (TVLA) testing methodology. The experimental results show that the RISC-V SoC protected by RDFS countermeasure can withstand CPA attacks and TVLA test with more than five million power traces, which is the best result compared to other related works. The proposed RDFS countermeasure also harden the targeted RISC-V SoC’s resistance against DL-SCA attacks.