Home // International Journal On Advances in Security, volume 15, numbers 1 and 2, 2022 // View article

Implementation of a Software Based Glitching Detection Mechanism

Authors:
Jakob Löw
Dominik Bayerl
Hans-Joachim Hof

Keywords: computer security; clocks; microcontrollers; pro- gram compilers; program control structures

Abstract:
Clock glitching is an attack surface of many micro- processors. While fault resistant processors exist, they usually come with a higher price tag, resulting in their cheaper alterna- tives being used for small embedded devices. After describing the effects of fault attacks and their application to modern micro- processors, this paper presents the concept and implementation of a novel software based approach at protecting programs from fault attacks. Even though the protection mechanism can be automatically added to a given program in a special compiler step, its use case is not to protect the full program. As shown by the performance analysis in this paper, the approach comes with heavy performance implications, making it only useful for protecting important parts of programs, such as initialization, key exchanges or other cryptographic implementations.

Pages: 31 to 40

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2022. Used with permission.

Publication date: June 30, 2022

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2636