Automated instantiation of side-channel attacks countermeasures for software cipher implementations

Abstract

Side Channel Attacks (SCA) have proven to be a practical threat to the security of embedded systems, exploiting the information leakage coming from unintended channels concerning an implementation of a cryptographic primitive. Given the large variety of embedded platforms, and the ubiquity of the need for secure cryptographic implementations, a systematic and automated approach to deploy SCA countermeasures at design time is strongly needed. In this paper, we provide an overview of recent compiler-based techniques to protect software implementations against SCA, making them amenable to automated application in the development of secure-by-design systems.