An adaptable, modular, and autonomous side-channel vulnerability evaluator

Computer aided design (CAD) tools are fundamental for ensuring a short time-to-market in nowadays chip design. However, while CAD tools support the development of efficient designs, they fail to support the designer with regard to side-channel security. In order to better assist the designer, we propose the AMASIVE (Adaptable Modular Autonomous SIde-Channel Vulnerability Evaluator) framework that autonomously identifies side-channel weaknesses in a design. Instead of implementing some countermeasures straight forward, AMASIVE highlights several design-specific vulnerabilities by exploiting an adaptable attacker model. Thus, we aim at supporting the designer in identifying countermeasures that are appropriate for the device´s application scenario. In this contribution we introduce the general concept of this novel framework and demonstrate its application to a hardware implementation of the block cipher PRESENT.