Putting IMT to the Test: Revisiting and Expanding Interval Matching Techniques and their Calibration for SCA
Jens Trautmann, Nikolaos Patsiatzis, Andreas Becher, Stefan Wildermann, Jürgen Teich · 2022
Side-Channel Analysis (SCA) requires the detection of the specific time frame Cryptographic Operations (COs) take place in the side-channel signal. Under laboratory conditions with full control over the Device under Test (DuT), dedicated trigger signals can be implemented to indicate the start and end of COs. For real-world scenarios, waveform-matching techniques have been established which compare the side-channel signal with a template of the CO's pattern in real time to detect the CO in the side channel. State-of-the-Art approaches describe implementations based on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). However, the maximal length of the template is restricted by the resources available on an FPGAs. Particularly, for high sampling rates the recording of an entire CO may need more samples than the maximum template length supported by a waveform-matching system. Consequently, the template has to be reduced such that it fits the resources while still containing all features relevant for detecting the COs via waveform matching.