Using Economic Prospect Theory to Quantify Side Channel Attacks
Jeremy Blackstone · 2023
Side channel analysis (SCA) attacks bypass these algorithms by monitoring the effects of the algorithm on a physical platform through power consumption, electromagnetic emanations, timing of operations, acoustic vibrations, or subjecting the device to fault injection. This chapter estimates the likelihood of adversaries launching SCAs as well as potential targets implementing SCA countermeasures using economic prospect theory. It determines the probability a SCA attack will occur based on human perception of risk. Since SCA attacks are a relatively new security concern, many are not familiar with the potential risks of hardware that is not equipped to mitigate these attacks. The chapter quantifies the cost and reward for SCA adversaries as well as the cost and risk for SCA targets. It also estimates the costs and rewards based on concrete attack scenarios for SCA specifically. Furthermore, all test subjects were undergraduate university students in the United Arab Emirates taking a cybersecurity course.