Computer Engineering Commons^™

Using A Light-Based Power Source To Defeat Power Analysis Attacks, Remus Valentin Tumac

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Power analysis attacks exploit the correlation between the information processed by an electronic system and the power consumption of the system. By powering an electronic system with an optical power source, we can prevent meaningful information from being leaked to the power pins and captured in power traces. The relatively constant current draw of the optical power source hides any variability in the power consumption of the target system caused by the logic gates' switching activity of the system as observed at the power pins. This thesis will provide evidence to show that using an optical power source should make …