A Survey of Side-Channel Leakage Assessment

Abstract

As more threatening side-channel attacks (SCAs) are being proposed, the security of cryptographic products is seriously challenged. This has prompted both academia and industry to evaluate the security of these products. The security assessment is divided into two styles: attacking-style assessment and leakage detection-style assessment. In this paper, we will focus specifically on the leakage detection-style assessment. Firstly, we divide the assessment methods into Test Vector Leakage Assessment (TVLA) and its optimizations and summarize the shortcomings of TVLA. Secondly, we categorize the various optimization schemes for overcoming these shortcomings into three groups: statistical tool optimizations, detection process optimizations, and decision strategy optimizations. We provide concise explanations of the motivations and processes behind each scheme, as well as compare their detection efficiency. Through our work, we conclude that there is no single optimal assessment scheme that can address all shortcomings of TVLA. Finally, we summarize the purposes and conditions of all leakage detection methods and provide a detection strategy for actual leakage detection. Additionally, we discuss the current development trends in leakage detection.