An adaptable, modular, and autonomous side-channel vulnerability evaluator

Computer aided design (CAD) tools are fundamental for ensuring a short time-to-market in nowadays chip design. However, while CAD tools support the development of efficient designs, they fail to support the designer with regard to side-channel security. In order to better assist the designer, we propose the AMASIVE (Adaptable Modular Autonomous SIde-Channel Vulnerability Evaluator) framework that autonomously identifies side-channel weaknesses in a design. Instead of implementing some countermeasures straight forward, AMASIVE highlights several design-specific vulnerabilities by exploiting an adaptable attacker model. Thus, we aim at supporting the designer in identifying countermeasures that are appropriate for the device's application scenario. In this contribution we introduce the general concept of this novel framework and demonstrate its application to a hardware implementation of the block cipher PRESENT.