VLSI and Circuits, Embedded and Hardware Systems Commons^™

A Moving Target Architecture As A Side-Channel Countermeasure, Rachel M. Cazzola

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

We investigate a novel side-channel attack countermeasure called Side-channel Power analysis Resistance for Encryption Algorithms using Dynamic partial reconfiguration (SPREAD). The countermeasure leverages a strategy that is best characterized as a moving target architecture. Modern field-programmable gate array (FPGA) architectures provide support for dynamic partial reconfiguration (DPR), a feature that allows real-time reconfiguration of portions of the programmable logic (PL) while the FPGA continues to carry out computing tasks. Using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), the proposed moving target architecture leverages DPR to change the implementation characteristics of the substitution boxes (SBOX) in real time. We present experimental hardware results …