Investigation of a Masking Countermeasure against Side-Channel Attacks for RISC-based Processor Architectures

Side-Channel Attacks (SCAs) present a serious threat to the security of crypto-systems. In this paper, we show how a pipelined embedded processor opens the door to such attacks. To illustrate our approach, a concrete evaluation of the Xilinx's MicroBlaze soft-core processor is conducted. From these results, we suggest a new masking countermeasure suited for RISC-based architectures. The efficiency and limits of the proposed solution are finally evaluated.