Unveiling Precision Amidst Noise
In signal analysis, the Transceiver excels at isolating crucial signals amidst noise. It enhances side-channel analysis (SCA) and Fault Injection (FI) triggering, offering improved capabilities similar to traditional digital filtering methods performed pre-digitization of the signal. This allows us to recognize critical signals within noisy contexts with superior efficiency and accuracy.
Advantages in Side Channel Analysis:
- Pre-Digitization Noise Reduction: The Transceiver filters signals before digitization, effectively minimizing quantification noise during signal processing by the oscilloscope. This streamlined approach significantly reduces errors, providing a clear and more accurate data stream for analysis, thereby reducing false positives.
(Spectrogram on EM showing information pattern)
(EM after Transceiver processing showing same information pattern, filtered at 105MHz)
- Time Efficiency in Calculation: Time is of the essence. By incorporating pre-digitization analog signal processing, the Transceiver circumvents computationally intensive tasks in software. This translates to remarkable timesaving, especially when handling extensive trace sets, streamlining the entire analysis process.
Advantages in Fault Injection Triggering:
- Enhanced Triggering Capabilities: Leveraging pattern detection in signals, devices like the Riscure icWaves rely on real-time identification for measurements or fault triggering. The Transceiver’s prowess in noise reduction refines these signals, simplifying pattern recognition, and enabling seamless triggering even in the midst of highly noisy target environments.
- Insightful Data: Well-filtered signals unveil detailed program execution information, shedding light on implemented countermeasures and enhancing overall understanding.
(EM showing Random Delays after processing by Transceiver)
Technical Design of Transceiver: Internal Processes Redefined
The Transceiver’s functionality encompasses crucial stages, starting with real-time Band-Pass Filtering, a key step that synchronizes chip processes with clock signals to generate periodic signals. This filtering process, particularly beneficial for cryptographic operations emitting specific frequency ranges, isolates these signals, substantially enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio by focusing on the frequencies of interest. Subsequently, signals undergo AM Demodulation post-band-pass filtering.
This process measures signal power or amplitude within defined frequency ranges, resulting in a reduced frequency range compared to the initial signal. This reduction enables easier capture and processing by an oscilloscope at a lower sample frequency, ensuring critical information is preserved effectively with fewer samples
Transceiver Use Cases:
- Signal Clarity Enhancement: The Transceiver excels in amplifying Side-Channel Power/EM Traces, which plays a pivotal role in mitigating false positives during testing scenarios. By refining these traces, the Transceiver significantly reduces the occurrence of misleading or erroneous results caused by noise interference, enabling more accurate and reliable analysis.
- Operation-Trace Alignment: One of the key strengths of the Transceiver lies in its ability to precisely align Executed Operations with corresponding Side Channel Traces. This alignment enhances the accuracy of analysis by minimizing discrepancies between operations and their associated traces, thereby reducing false results that might emerge due to misalignment or mismatch.
- Strategic Countermeasure Adaptation: The Transceiver seamlessly navigates through various countermeasure tactics, such as Random Delays or Dummy Rounds, commonly employed in testing scenarios. By adeptly handling these countermeasures, it generates discernible patterns optimized for Riscure icWaves Triggering. This strategic adaptation effectively minimizes false positives in assessments, ensuring more reliable and accurate testing outcomes.
The Transceiver delivers improvements in signal clarity, noise reduction, and the precision of side-channel analysis and fault injection triggering. By filtering signals before digitization and aligning operations with traces more effectively, it enables faster and more accurate testing. Additionally, its adaptability to various countermeasures helps ensure dependable results in different testing environments.
If you’d like to explore how the Transceiver can enhance your security assessments, reach out to us at inforequest@riscure.com for more information.