Side channel analysis on non volatile memories

Réf. 995881 - publié le 15 octobre 2024

Informations générales

Missions

Grenoble INP vous propose une offre de stage dans les domaines Informatique, télécom, Bases de données, Développement, Génie logiciel, Informatique de gestion,... à Valence.

New memory technologies have emerged recently to replace multiple level of the memory hierarchy. These promise high density, low energy and high bandwidth memories into a single type of memory. Moreover, compared to SRAM or DRAM, they are also non volatile, i.e. they retain data even when power is cut. However, they present some asymmetries in power depending on the data read or written. As such, it may be possible for an attacker to guess secret information stored within the memory [1]. Side channel attacks are passive attacks in which the attacker has access to some physical channels emanating from the victim which may carry information. Most common channels are time, power, EM radiation, temperature, etc. The attacker will try to retrieve meaningful information from one or multiple channels to break cryptographic systems or get access to secret information such as a private key. Badly implemented algorithm or CPU core may naturally leak data while some information leaks are unavoidable (e.g. EM radiation). In this internship, we aim to characterize the susceptibility of non volatile memories to side channel attacks of different kinds, mainly EM radiation, timing and instantaneous power consumption. This exploratory work will be used to target in-memory computing targets in the future [2]. Based on the knowledge of the physical phenomenon used to store the information, we want to propose models to exploit vulnerabilities of these new memories. The intern will perform side channel attacks on non volatile memories and try to extract information through correlation, differential measurement or any other model used in side channel attacks. In this internship, the main tasks will be: • Prototyping RISC-V core (CV32E40P) in FPGA • Implementing basic software to drive the NVM • Conducting side channel attacks on different NVM • Analyzing and determining the best model to steal information from the NVM • Eventually, testing different encoding to increase resistance to SCA

Profil

Who can apply: Applicants must be enrolled in a Master’s degree or engineering school in cyber
security, computer engineering or embedded systems and have interests in hardware security.
Required skills:
• C and assembly
• Electronics design and measurement
• Embedded systems
• Cybersecurity

Postuler

Nom du recruteur : Beroulle Vincent