Fault Round Modification Analysis of the advanced encryption standard

• Published in: 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust pp. 140 - 145
• Main Authors: Dutertre, J., Mirbaha, Amir-Pasha, Naccache, D., Ribotta, Anne-Lise, Tria, A., Vaschalde, T.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-06-2012
• Subjects: Algorithm design and analysis; Circuit faults; Encryption; Radiation detectors; Semiconductor lasers; Strontium
• DOI: 10.1109/HST.2012.6224334
• ISBN: 9781467323413; 1467323411

This paper describes a new physical analysis technique based on changing the number of the AES rounds. It is an extension of the already known Round Reduction Analysis techniques. Round Modification Analysis is a specific algorithm modification attack. However, the cryptanalysis of the obtained erroneous ciphertexts resorts to the differentiation techniques used by Differential Fault Analysis. Faults were induced thanks to a laser in a software AES, either on the round counter itself or on the reference of its total round number, to obtain an increase or a decrease in the number of rounds. We report here successful attacks and their corresponding cryptanalysis.