Abstract
Attacks on embedded devices using the electromagnetic (EM) side channel have proliferated. Predicting software vulnerability to such attacks requires an ability to simulate EM fields during software development rather than relying on expensive lab-based measurements. We propose a modeling approach capable of synthesizing instruction-level EM traces for arbitrary software, using a one-time pre-characterization of a processor. Reducing the cost of dictionary construction is a major contribution of this paper. Results on a set of benchmarks show that synthesized traces are accurate in estimating EM emanations with less than 5% mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) compared to measurements. Furthermore, synthesized traces predict control flow leakage with an accuracy of 87% or more based on the side-channel vulnerability factor (SVF) metric.
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This work was supported in part by NSF grant CCF-1901446.
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Thimmaiah, A., Iyer, V.V., Gerstlauer, A., Orshansky, M. (2022). High-Level Simulation of Embedded Software Vulnerabilities to EM Side-Channel Attacks. In: Orailoglu, A., Reichenbach, M., Jung, M. (eds) Embedded Computer Systems: Architectures, Modeling, and Simulation. SAMOS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13511. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15074-6_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15074-6_10
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