Memory-Based High-Level Synthesis Optimizations Security Exploration on the Power Side-Channel

High-level synthesis (HLS) allows hardware designers to think algorithmically and not worry about low-level, cycle-by-cycle details. This provides the ability to quickly explore the architectural design space and tradeoffs between resource utilization and performance. Unfortunately, security evaluation is not a standard part of the HLS design flow. In this article, we aim to understand the effects of memory-based HLS optimizations on power side-channel leakage. We use Xilinx Vivado HLS to develop different cryptographic cores, implement them on a Spartan-6 FPGA, and collect power traces. We evaluate the designs with respect to resource utilization, performance, and information leakage through power consumption. We have two important observations and contributions. First, the choice of resource optimization directive results in different levels of side-channel vulnerabilities. Second, the partitioning optimization directive can greatly compromise the hardware cryptographic system through power side-channel leakage due to the deployment of memory control logic. We describe an evaluation procedure for power side-channel leakage and use it to make best-effort recommendations about how to design more secure architectures in the cryptographic domain

KLEIN: A New Family of Lightweight Block Ciphers

Resource-efficient cryptographic primitives become fundamental for realizing both security and efficiency in embedded systems like RFID tags and sensor nodes. Among those primitives, lightweight block cipher plays a major role as a building block for security protocols. In this paper, we describe a new family of lightweight block ciphers named KLEIN, which is designed for resource-constrained devices such as wireless sensors and RFID tags. Compared to the related proposals, KLEIN has advantage in the software performance on legacy sensor platforms, while in the same time its hardware implementation can also be compact

Exercice de style

We present the construction and implementation of an 8-bit S-box with a differential and linear branch number of 3. We show an application by designing FLY, a simple block cipher based on bitsliced evaluations of the S-box and bit rotations that targets the same platforms as PRIDE, and which can be seen as a variant of PRESENT with 8-bit S-boxes. It achieves the same performance as PRIDE on 8-bit microcontrollers (in terms of number of instructions per round) while having 1.5 times more equivalent active S-boxes. The S-box also has an efficient implementation with SIMD instructions, a low implementation cost in hardware and it can be masked efficiently thanks to its sparing use of non-linear gates.Cette note présente la construction et l'implémentation d'une boîte S sur 8 bits qui a un branchement linéaire et différentiel de 3.Nous montrons une application en construisant un chiffre par bloc sur 64 bits dont la structure est très simple et est basée sur l'évaluationen tranches (bitsliced) de la boîte S et des rotations sur mots de 8 bits et qui peut être vu comme une variante de PRESENT avec une boîte S de 8 bits. La fonction de tour de ce chiffre peut s'implémenter avec le même nombred'instructions que celle de PRIDE sur micro-controleurs 8-bits, tout en ayant 1,5 fois plus de boîtes S actives (relativement).Cette boîte S peut aussi s'implémenter efficacement avec des instructions SIMD, a un coût faible en matériel etpeut se masquer efficacement grâce au peu de portes non-linéaires nécessaires

State of the Art in Lightweight Symmetric Cryptography

Lightweight cryptography has been one of the hot topics in symmetric cryptography in the recent years. A huge number of lightweight algorithms have been published, standardized and/or used in commercial products. In this paper, we discuss the different implementation constraints that a lightweight algorithm is usually designed to satisfy in both the software and the hardware case. We also present an extensive survey of all lightweight symmetric primitives we are aware of. It covers designs from the academic community, from government agencies and proprietary algorithms which were reverse-engineered or leaked. Relevant national (NIST...) and international (ISO/IEC...) standards are listed. We identified several trends in the design of lightweight algorithms, such as the designers\u27 preference for ARX-based and bitsliced-S-Box-based designs or simpler key schedules. We also discuss more general trade-offs facing the authors of such algorithms and suggest a clearer distinction between two subsets of lightweight cryptography. The first, ultra-lightweight cryptography, deals with primitives fulfilling a unique purpose while satisfying specific and narrow constraints. The second is ubiquitous cryptography and it encompasses more versatile algorithms both in terms of functionality and in terms of implementation trade-offs

Security analysis of NIST-LWC contest finalists

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Informatics EngineeringTraditional cryptographic standards are designed with a desktop and server environment in mind, so, with the relatively recent proliferation of small, resource constrained devices in the Internet of Things, sensor networks, embedded systems, and more, there has been a call for lightweight cryptographic standards with security, performance and resource requirements tailored for the highly-constrained environments these devices find themselves in. In 2015 the National Institute of Standards and Technology began a Standardization Process in order to select one or more Lightweight Cryptographic algorithms. Out of the original 57 submissions ten finalists remain, with ASCON and Romulus being among the most scrutinized out of them. In this dissertation I will introduce some concepts required for easy understanding of the body of work, do an up-to-date revision on the current situation on the standardization process from a security and performance standpoint, a description of ASCON and Romulus, and new best known analysis, and a comparison of the two, with their advantages, drawbacks, and unique traits.Os padrões criptográficos tradicionais foram elaborados com um ambiente de computador e servidor em mente. Com a proliferação de dispositivos de pequenas dimensões tanto na Internet of Things, redes de sensores e sistemas embutidos, apareceu uma necessidade para se definir padrões para algoritmos de criptografia leve, com prioridades de segurança, performance e gasto de recursos equilibrados para os ambientes altamente limitados em que estes dispositivos operam. Em 2015 o National Institute of Standards and Technology lançou um processo de estandardização com o objectivo de escolher um ou mais algoritmos de criptografia leve. Das cinquenta e sete candidaturas originais sobram apenas dez finalistas, sendo ASCON e Romulus dois desses finalistas mais examinados. Nesta dissertação irei introduzir alguns conceitos necessários para uma fácil compreensão do corpo deste trabalho, assim como uma revisão atualizada da situação atual do processo de estandardização de um ponto de vista tanto de segurança como de performance, uma descrição do ASCON e do Romulus assim como as suas melhores análises recentes e uma comparação entre os dois, frisando as suas vantagens, desvantagens e aspectos únicos

A Framework for Facilitating Secure Design and Development of IoT Systems

The term Internet of Things (IoT) describes an ever-growing ecosystem of physical objects or things interconnected with each other and connected to the Internet. IoT devices consist of a wide range of highly heterogeneous inanimate and animate objects. Thus, a thing in the context of the IoT can even mean a person with blood pressure or heart rate monitor implant or a pet with a biochip transponder. IoT devices range from ordinary household appliances, such as smart light bulbs or smart coffee makers, to sophisticated tools for industrial automation. IoT is currently leading a revolutionary change in many industries and, as a result, a lot of industries and organizations are adopting the paradigm to gain a competitive edge. This allows them to boost operational efficiency and optimize system performance through real-time data management, which results in an optimized balance between energy usage and throughput. Another important application area is the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which is the application of the IoT in industrial settings. This is also referred to as the Industrial Internet or Industry 4.0, where Cyber- Physical Systems (CPS) are interconnected using various technologies to achieve wireless control as well as advanced manufacturing and factory automation. IoT applications are becoming increasingly prevalent across many application domains, including smart healthcare, smart cities, smart grids, smart farming, and smart supply chain management. Similarly, IoT is currently transforming the way people live and work, and hence the demand for smart consumer products among people is also increasing steadily. Thus, many big industry giants, as well as startup companies, are competing to dominate the market with their new IoT products and services, and hence unlocking the business value of IoT. Despite its increasing popularity, potential benefits, and proven capabilities, IoT is still in its infancy and fraught with challenges. The technology is faced with many challenges, including connectivity issues, compatibility/interoperability between devices and systems, lack of standardization, management of the huge amounts of data, and lack of tools for forensic investigations. However, the state of insecurity and privacy concerns in the IoT are arguably among the key factors restraining the universal adoption of the technology. Consequently, many recent research studies reveal that there are security and privacy issues associated with the design and implementation of several IoT devices and Smart Applications (smart apps). This can be attributed, partly, to the fact that as some IoT device makers and smart apps development companies (especially the start-ups) reap business value from the huge IoT market, they tend to neglect the importance of security. As a result, many IoT devices and smart apps are created with security vulnerabilities, which have resulted in many IoT related security breaches in recent years. This thesis is focused on addressing the security and privacy challenges that were briefly highlighted in the previous paragraph. Given that the Internet is not a secure environ ment even for the traditional computer systems makes IoT systems even less secure due to the inherent constraints associated with many IoT devices. These constraints, which are mainly imposed by cost since many IoT edge devices are expected to be inexpensive and disposable, include limited energy resources, limited computational and storage capabilities, as well as lossy networks due to the much lower hardware performance compared to conventional computers. While there are many security and privacy issues in the IoT today, arguably a root cause of such issues is that many start-up IoT device manufacturers and smart apps development companies do not adhere to the concept of security by design. Consequently, some of these companies produce IoT devices and smart apps with security vulnerabilities. In recent years, attackers have exploited different security vulnerabilities in IoT infrastructures which have caused several data breaches and other security and privacy incidents involving IoT devices and smart apps. These have attracted significant attention from the research community in both academia and industry, resulting in a surge of proposals put forward by many researchers. Although research approaches and findings may vary across different research studies, the consensus is that a fundamental prerequisite for addressing IoT security and privacy challenges is to build security and privacy protection into IoT devices and smart apps from the very beginning. To this end, this thesis investigates how to bake security and privacy into IoT systems from the onset, and as its main objective, this thesis particularly focuses on providing a solution that can foster the design and development of secure IoT devices and smart apps, namely the IoT Hardware Platform Security Advisor (IoT-HarPSecA) framework. The security framework is expected to provide support to designers and developers in IoT start-up companies during the design and implementation of IoT systems. IoT-HarPSecA framework is also expected to facilitate the implementation of security in existing IoT systems. To accomplish the previously mentioned objective as well as to affirm the aforementioned assertion, the following step-by-step problem-solving approach is followed. The first step is an exhaustive survey of different aspects of IoT security and privacy, including security requirements in IoT architecture, security threats in IoT architecture, IoT application domains and their associated cyber assets, the complexity of IoT vulnerabilities, and some possible IoT security and privacy countermeasures; and the survey wraps up with a brief overview of IoT hardware development platforms. The next steps are the identification of many challenges and issues associated with the IoT, which narrowed down to the abovementioned fundamental security/privacy issue; followed by a study of different aspects of security implementation in the IoT. The remaining steps are the framework design thinking process, framework design and implementation, and finally, framework performance evaluation. IoT-HarPSecA offers three functionality features, namely security requirement elicitation security best practice guidelines for secure development, and above all, a feature that recommends specific Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms (LWCAs) for both software and hardware implementations. Accordingly, IoT-HarPSecA is composed of three main components, namely Security Requirements Elicitation (SRE) component, Security Best Practice Guidelines (SBPG) component, and Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms Recommendation (LWCAR) component, each of them servicing one of the aforementioned features. The author has implemented a command-line tool in C++ to serve as an interface between users and the security framework. This thesis presents a detailed description, design, and implementation of the SRE, SBPG, and LWCAR components of the security framework. It also presents real-world practical scenarios that show how IoT-HarPSecA can be used to elicit security requirements, generate security best practices, and recommend appropriate LWCAs based on user inputs. Furthermore, the thesis presents performance evaluation of the SRE, SBPG, and LWCAR components framework tools, which shows that IoT-HarPSecA can serve as a roadmap for secure IoT development.O termo Internet das coisas (IoT) é utilizado para descrever um ecossistema, em expansão, de objetos físicos ou elementos interconetados entre si e à Internet. Os dispositivos IoT consistem numa gama vasta e heterogénea de objetos animados ou inanimados e, neste contexto, podem pertencer à IoT um indivíduo com um implante que monitoriza a frequência cardíaca ou até mesmo um animal de estimação que tenha um biochip. Estes dispositivos variam entre eletrodomésticos, tais como máquinas de café ou lâmpadas inteligentes, a ferramentas sofisticadas de uso na automatização industrial. A IoT está a revolucionar e a provocar mudanças em várias indústrias e muitas adotam esta tecnologia para incrementar as suas vantagens competitivas. Este paradigma melhora a eficiência operacional e otimiza o desempenho de sistemas através da gestão de dados em tempo real, resultando num balanço otimizado entre o uso energético e a taxa de transferência. Outra área de aplicação é a IoT Industrial (IIoT) ou internet industrial ou Indústria 4.0, ou seja, uma aplicação de IoT no âmbito industrial, onde os sistemas ciberfísicos estão interconectados a diversas tecnologias de forma a obter um controlo de rede sem fios, bem como fabricações avançadas e automatização fabril. As aplicações da IoT estão a crescer e a tornarem-se predominantes em muitos domínios de aplicação inteligentes como sistemas de saúde, cidades, redes, agricultura e sistemas de fornecimento. Da mesma forma, a IoT está a transformar estilos de vida e de trabalho e assim, a procura por produtos inteligentes está constantemente a aumentar. As grandes indústrias e startups competem entre si de forma a dominar o mercado com os seus novos serviços e produtos IoT, desbloqueando o valor de negócio da IoT. Apesar da sua crescente popularidade, benefícios e capacidades comprovadas, a IoT está ainda a dar os seus primeiros passos e é confrontada com muitos desafios. Entre eles, problemas de conectividade, compatibilidade/interoperabilidade entre dispositivos e sistemas, falta de padronização, gestão das enormes quantidades de dados e ainda falta de ferramentas para investigações forenses. No entanto, preocupações quanto ao estado de segurança e privacidade ainda estão entre os fatores adversos à adesão universal desta tecnologia. Estudos recentes revelaram que existem questões de segurança e privacidade associadas ao design e implementação de vários dispositivos IoT e aplicações inteligentes (smart apps.), isto pode ser devido ao facto, em parte, de que alguns fabricantes e empresas de desenvolvimento de dispositivos (especialmente startups) IoT e smart apps., recolham o valor de negócio dos grandes mercados IoT, negligenciando assim a importância da segurança, resultando em dispositivos IoT e smart apps. com carências e violações de segurança da IoT nos últimos anos. Esta tese aborda os desafios de segurança e privacidade que foram supra mencionados. Visto que a Internet e os sistemas informáticos tradicionais são por vezes considerados inseguros, os sistemas IoT tornam-se ainda mais inseguros, devido a restrições inerentes a tais dispositivos. Estas restrições são impostas devido ao custo, uma vez que se espera que muitos dispositivos de ponta sejam de baixo custo e descartáveis, com recursos energéticos limitados, bem como limitações na capacidade de armazenamento e computacionais, e redes com perdas devido a um desempenho de hardware de qualidade inferior, quando comparados com computadores convencionais. Uma das raízes do problema é o facto de que muitos fabricantes, startups e empresas de desenvolvimento destes dispositivos e smart apps não adiram ao conceito de segurança por construção, ou seja, logo na conceção, não preveem a proteção da privacidade e segurança. Assim, alguns dos produtos e dispositivos produzidos apresentam vulnerabilidades na segurança. Nos últimos anos, hackers maliciosos têm explorado diferentes vulnerabilidades de segurança nas infraestruturas da IoT, causando violações de dados e outros incidentes de privacidade envolvendo dispositivos IoT e smart apps. Estes têm atraído uma atenção significativa por parte das comunidades académica e industrial, que culminaram num grande número de propostas apresentadas por investigadores científicos. Ainda que as abordagens de pesquisa e os resultados variem entre os diferentes estudos, há um consenso e pré-requisito fundamental para enfrentar os desafios de privacidade e segurança da IoT, que buscam construir proteção de segurança e privacidade em dispositivos IoT e smart apps. desde o fabrico. Para esta finalidade, esta tese investiga como produzir segurança e privacidade destes sistemas desde a produção, e como principal objetivo, concentra-se em fornecer soluções que possam promover a conceção e o desenvolvimento de dispositivos IoT e smart apps., nomeadamente um conjunto de ferramentas chamado Consultor de Segurança da Plataforma de Hardware da IoT (IoT-HarPSecA). Espera-se que o conjunto de ferramentas forneça apoio a designers e programadores em startups durante a conceção e implementação destes sistemas ou que facilite a integração de mecanismos de segurança nos sistemas préexistentes. De modo a alcançar o objetivo proposto, recorre-se à seguinte abordagem. A primeira fase consiste num levantamento exaustivo de diferentes aspetos da segurança e privacidade na IoT, incluindo requisitos de segurança na arquitetura da IoT e ameaças à sua segurança, os seus domínios de aplicação e os ativos cibernéticos associados, a complexidade das vulnerabilidades da IoT e ainda possíveis contramedidas relacionadas com a segurança e privacidade. Evolui-se para uma breve visão geral das plataformas de desenvolvimento de hardware da IoT. As fases seguintes consistem na identificação dos desafios e questões associadas à IoT, que foram restringidos às questões de segurança e privacidade. As demais etapas abordam o processo de pensamento de conceção (design thinking), design e implementação e, finalmente, a avaliação do desempenho. O IoT-HarPSecA é composto por três componentes principais: a Obtenção de Requisitos de Segurança (SRE), Orientações de Melhores Práticas de Segurança (SBPG) e a recomendação de Componentes de Algoritmos Criptográficos Leves (LWCAR) na implementação de software e hardware. O autor implementou uma ferramenta em linha de comandos usando linguagem C++ que serve como interface entre os utilizadores e a IoT-HarPSecA. Esta tese apresenta ainda uma descrição detalhada, desenho e implementação das componentes SRE, SBPG, e LWCAR. Apresenta ainda cenários práticos do mundo real que demostram como o IoT-HarPSecA pode ser utilizado para elicitar requisitos de segurança, gerar boas práticas de segurança (em termos de recomendações de implementação) e recomendar algoritmos criptográficos leves apropriados com base no contributo dos utilizadores. De igual forma, apresenta-se a avaliação do desempenho destes três componentes, demonstrando que o IoT-HarPSecA pode servir como um roteiro para o desenvolvimento seguro da IoT