Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Simple electromagnetic analysis attack based on geometric leak on ASIC implementation of ring-oscillator PUF

  • Regular Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Cryptographic Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Physically unclonable functions (PUFs) are assumed to provide high tamper resistance against counterfeiting and hardware attacks since PUFs extract inherent physical properties from random and uncontrollable variations in manufacturing. Recent studies have reported on the vulnerabilities of PUFs to physical and mathematical attacks. This paper focuses on the security evaluation of a ring-oscillator PUF (RO PUF) against electromagnetic analysis (EMA) attacks. We designed an RO PUF with a 180-nm CMOS process to evaluate the threats of EMA attacks. The power consumption of this RO PUF is reduced as much as possible to reduce EM leaks, and EMA resistance is enhanced in the layout design. We present the results of EMA attacks on our RO PUF and discuss the threats of such attacks on the application-specific integrated circuit implementation of RO PUFs. We also propose an EMA attack based on geometric leak (Sugawara in: Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems-CHES 2013—15th International Workshop, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, August 20–23, 2013, Proceedings, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40349-1_10) for RO PUFs. All components of an RO PUF are usually arranged in a matrix or array. The geometric periodicity in the layout of RO PUFs leaks secret PUF responses. Though previous studies required identifying oscillation frequency of each RO from measured EMA traces, the proposed attack, called simple EMA attack based on geometric leak, reveals a PUF response from one measured EM trace directly. This attack correctly predicted 94.2% of PUF responses of our RO PUF. We present how a PUF response is revealed from a measured EM trace, suggesting that such an attack poses a serious threat to RO PUFs.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Dodis, Y., Reyzin, L., Smith, A.D.: Fuzzy extractors: how to generate strong keys from biometrics and other noisy data. In: Advances in Cryptology-EUROCRYPT 2004, International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, Interlaken, Switzerland, May 2–6, 2004, Proceedings, pp. 523–540 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24676-3_31

  2. Gandolfi, K., Mourtel, C., Olivier, F.: Electromagnetic analysis: concrete results. In: Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems-CHES 2001, Third International Workshop, Paris, France, May 14–16, 2001, Proceedings, Generators, pp. 251–261 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44709-1_21

  3. Gassend, B., Clarke, D.E., van Dijk, M., Devadas, S.: Silicon physical random functions. In: Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2002, Washington, DC, USA, November 18–22, 2002, pp. 148–160 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1145/586110.586132

  4. Guajardo, J., Kumar, S.S., Schrijen, G.J., Tuyls, P.: FPGA intrinsic pufs and their use for IP protection. In: Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems-CHES 2007, 9th International Workshop, Vienna, Austria, September 10–13, 2007, Proceedings, pp. 63–80 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74735-2_5

  5. Helfmeier, C., Boit, C., Nedospasov, D., Seifert, J.: Cloning physically unclonable functions. In: 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust, HOST 2013, Austin, TX, USA, June 2–3, 2013, pp. 1–6 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1109/HST.2013.6581556

  6. Hori, Y., Kang, H., Katashita, T., Satoh, A.: Pseudo-lfsr PUF: a compact, efficient and reliable physical unclonable function. In: 2011 International Conference on Reconfigurable Computing and FPGAs, ReConFig 2011, Cancun, Mexico, November 30–December 2, 2011, pp. 223–228 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1109/ReConFig.2011.72

  7. Langer EMV-Technik.: Near-field microprobes. https://www.langer-emv.de/en/category/near-field-microprobes-icr-hh-h-field/26

  8. Lee, J.W., Lim, D., Gassend, B., Suh, G.E., Van Dijk, M., Devadas, S.: A technique to build a secret key in integrated circuits for identification and authentication applications. In: 2004 Symposium on VLSI Circuits. Digest of Technical Papers (IEEE Cat. No. 04CH37525), pp. 176–179. IEEE (2004)

  9. Liu, C.Q., Cao, Y., Chang, C.H.: Acro-puf: a low-power, reliable and aging-resilient current starved inverter-based ring oscillator physical unclonable function. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I Regul. Pap. 64(12), 3138–3149 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Machida, T., Yamamoto, D., Iwamoto, M., Sakiyama, K.: A new mode of operation for arbiter PUF to improve uniqueness on FPGA. In: Proceedings of the 2014 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, Warsaw, Poland, September 7–10, 2014, pp. 871–878 (2014). https://doi.org/10.15439/2014F140

  11. Maes, R.: Physically Unclonable Functions-Constructions. Properties and Applications. Springer, New York (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41395-7

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Merli, D., Heyszl, J., Heinz, B., Schuster, D., Stumpf, F., Sigl, G.: Localized electromagnetic analysis of RO pufs. In: 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust, HOST 2013, Austin, TX, USA, June 2–3, 2013, pp. 19–24 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1109/HST.2013.6581559

  13. Merli, D., Schuster, D., Stumpf, F., Sigl, G.: Semi-invasive EM attack on FPGA RO PUFS and countermeasures. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Embedded Systems Security, pp. 1–9 (2011)

  14. Merli, D., Schuster, D., Stumpf, F., Sigl, G.: Side-channel analysis of pufs and fuzzy extractors. In: Trust and Trustworthy Computing-4th International Conference, TRUST 2011, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, June 22–24, 2011, Proceedings, pp. 33–47 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21599-5_3

  15. Oren, Y., Sadeghi, A., Wachsmann, C.: On the effectiveness of the remanence decay side-channel to clone memory-based pufs. In: Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems-CHES 2013-15th International Workshop, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, August 20–23, 2013, Proceedings, pp. 107–125 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40349-1_7

  16. Pappu, R., Recht, B., Taylor, J., Gershenfeld, N.: Physical one-way functions. Science 297(5589), 2026–2030 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Quisquater, J., Samyde, D.: Electromagnetic analysis (EMA): measures and counter-measures for smart cards. In: Smart Card Programming and Security, International Conference on Research in Smart Cards, E-smart 2001, Cannes, France, September 19-21, 2001, Proceedings, pp. 200–210 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45418-7_17

  18. Rührmair, U., Sehnke, F., Sölter, J., Dror, G., Devadas, S., Schmidhuber, J.: Modeling attacks on physical unclonable functions. In: Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2010, Chicago, Illinois, USA, October 4–8, 2010, pp. 237–249 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1145/1866307.1866335

  19. Shiozaki, M., Fujino, T.: Simple electromagnetic analysis attacks based on geometric leak on an ASIC implementation of ring-oscillator PUF. In: Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Workshop on Attacks and Solutions in Hardware Security Workshop, ASHES@CCS 2019, London, UK, November 15, 2019, pp. 13–21 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3338508.3359569

  20. Shiozaki, M., Kubota, T., Nakai, T., Takeuchi, A., Nishimura, T., Fujino, T.: Tamper-resistant authentication system with side-channel attack resistant AES and PUF using MDR-ROM. In: 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, ISCAS 2015, Lisbon, Portugal, May 24–27, 2015, pp. 1462–1465 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1109/ISCAS.2015.7168920

  21. Sugawara, T., Suzuki, D., Saeki, M., Shiozaki, M., Fujino, T.: On measurable side-channel leaks inside ASIC design primitives. In: Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems-CHES 2013—15th International Workshop, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, August 20–23, 2013, Proceedings, pp. 159–178 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40349-1_10

  22. Suh, G.E., Devadas, S.: Physical unclonable functions for device authentication and secret key generation. In: Proceedings of the 44th Design Automation Conference, DAC 2007, San Diego, CA, USA, June 4–8, 2007, pp. 9–14 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1145/1278480.1278484

  23. Yoshimoto, Y., Katoh, Y., Ogasahara, S., Wei, Z., Kouno, K.: A reram-based physically unclonable function with bit error rate \(<\) 0.5% after 10 years at 125\(^{\circ }\)c for 40 nm embedded application. In: 2016 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Technology, pp. 1–2. IEEE (2016)

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work is based on results obtained from a project commissioned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ritsumeikan university, 1-1-1 Noji-Higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga, 525-8577, Japan

    Mitsuru Shiozaki & Takeshi Fujino

Authors
  1. Mitsuru Shiozaki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Takeshi Fujino
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mitsuru Shiozaki.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Shiozaki, M., Fujino, T. Simple electromagnetic analysis attack based on geometric leak on ASIC implementation of ring-oscillator PUF. J Cryptogr Eng 11, 201–212 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13389-020-00240-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13389-020-00240-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation