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Design and Evaluation of a Power Analysis Resilient Implementation of Piccolo-80 Lightweight Encryption Algorithm

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Abstract

Piccolo is an ultra-lightweight encryption algorithm designed for highly resource-constrained platforms. However, lightweight algorithms are susceptible and vulnerable to side-channel attacks, including the powerful correlation power analysis (CPA) technique. This study highlights the vulnerability of Piccolo to CPA and propose an effective masking scheme to mitigate this threat. The conducted experiments demonstrate that CPA attack on unmasked implementations of Piccolo was successful, while the masked version of the algorithm proved resistant, preventing key recovery. Additionally, we have introduced a straightforward Boolean scheme for implementing the algorithm. These findings hold significant importance for the future of IoT devices and applications, where area, energy consumption, and security are critical considerations.

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Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and insightful comments.

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  1. Departement of Electrical Engineering, Islamshahr Islamic Azad University, Islamshahr, Tehran, Iran

    M. Masoumi

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  1. M. Masoumi
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Masoumi, M. Design and Evaluation of a Power Analysis Resilient Implementation of Piccolo-80 Lightweight Encryption Algorithm. J Hardw Syst Secur 7, 101–109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41635-023-00136-0

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