Design and Security Analysis of an AES Encryption Module

The project applies a Differential Power Analysis (DPA) attack on a hardware AES cryptographic module.
AES is implemented on an FPGA module, which is connected to the ChipWhisperer commercial hardware attack kit.

In this project, AES encryption hardware was implemented on Zedboard.
Chipwhisperer Kit was used to take electromagnetic field measurements for the DPA attack.
The system has two ends – Chipwhisperer is the attacker end, and the Zedboard is the victim end.
The goal of the project is to implement the victim side and the communication between the victim and the attacker,
and to perform a successful DPA attack.
Due to the same clock frequency of both Chipwhisperer and Zedboard, modifying the DPA attack was needed.
The project contributed an infrastructure for DPA analysis. However, the attack itself failed allegedly as a result of insufficient accuracy of the analysis hardware.
Specific points that may affect the results are:
– Not enough samples were taken
– A change in the DPA attack may have been needed
– Some environment factors effected the attack