Efficient key detection method in the correlation electromagnetic analysis using peak selection algorithm

A side channel analysis is a very efficient attack against small devices such as smart cards and wireless sensor nodes. In this paper, we propose an efficient key detection method using a peak selection algorithm in order to find the advanced encryption standard secret key from electromagnetic signals. The proposed method is applied to a correlation electromagnetic analysis (CEMA) attack against a wireless sensor node. Our approach results in increase in the correlation coefficient in comparison with the general CEMA. The experimental results show that the proposed method can efficiently and reliably uncover the entire 128-bit key with a small number of traces, whereas some extant methods can reveal only partial subkeys by using a large number of traces in the same conditions.