how to characterize side-channel leakages more accurately?

The effectiveness of side-channel attacks strongly depends on to what extent the underlying leakage model characterizes the physical leakages of cryptographic implementations and on how largely the subsequent distinguisher exploits these leakages. Motivated by this, we propose a compact yet efficient approach to more accurately characterizing side-channel leakages. It is called Bitwise Weighted Characterization (BWC) approach. We use power analysis attacks as illustrative examples and construct two new BWC-based side-channel distinguishers, namely BWC-DPA and BWC-CPA. We present a comparative study of several distinguishers applied to both simulated power traces and real power measurements from an AES microcontroller prototype implementation to demonstrate the validity and the effectiveness of the proposed methods. For example, the number of traces required to perform successful BWC-CPA (resp. BWC-DPA) is only 66% (resp. 49%) of that of CPA (resp. DPA). Our results firmly validate the power and the accuracy of the proposed side-channel leakages characterization approach. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

The Arabidopsis MIK2 receptor elicits immunity by sensing a conserved signature from phytocytokines and microbes

Sessile plants encode a large number of small peptides and cell surface-resident receptor kinases, most of which have unknown functions. Here, we report that the Arabidopsis receptor kinase MALE DISCOVERER 1-INTERACTING RECEPTOR-LIKE KINASE 2 (MIK2) recognizes the conserved signature motif of SERINE-RICH ENDOGENOUS PEPTIDEs (SCOOPs) from Brassicaceae plants as well as proteins present in fungal Fusarium spp. and bacterial Comamonadaceae, and elicits various immune responses. SCOOP signature peptides trigger immune responses and altered root development in a MIK2-dependent manner with a sub-nanomolar sensitivity. SCOOP12 directly binds to the extracellular leucine-rich repeat domain of MIK2 in vivo and in vitro, indicating that MIK2 is the receptor of SCOOP peptides. Perception of SCOOP peptides induces the association of MIK2 and the coreceptors SOMATIC EMBRYOGENESIS RECEPTOR KINASE 3 (SERK3) and SERK4 and relays the signaling through the cytosolic receptor-like kinases BOTRYTIS-INDUCED KINASE 1 (BIK1) and AVRPPHB SUSCEPTIBLE1 (PBS1)-LIKE 1 (PBL1). Our study identifies a plant receptor that bears a dual role in sensing the conserved peptide motif from phytocytokines and microbial proteins via a convergent signaling relay to ensure a robust immune response. Peptide signals generated during plant microbe interactions can trigger immune responses in plants. Here the authors show that SCOOP12, a member of a family of peptides present in Brassicaceae plants, and SCOOP12-like motifs in Fusarium fungi, can trigger immune responses following perception by the MIK2 receptor kinase