Design and implementation of a Differential Power Analysis System for cryptographic devices

In this paper, an automatic general-purpose Differential Power Analysis (DPA) System for cryptographic devices is designed and implemented. This system aims at testing the security of cryptographic devices, e.g., Smart Card, FPGA and ASIC circuit against DPA attacks. To verify the effectiveness of the system, a DPA attack was successfully carried out by it on an AES cryptographic ASIC chip which had countermeasures implemented in it. The experimental results showed that the correct cipher key of this AES chip could be obtained during less than 3 hours of data processing time with at least 5000 power traces.