## CryptoDB

### Paper: An Instruction Set Extension to Support Software-Based Masking

Authors: Si Gao , Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria Johann Großschädl , Department of Computer Science, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg Ben Marshall , Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK; PQShield Ltd, Oxford, UK Dan Page , Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Thinh Pham , Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Francesco Regazzoni , UniversitÃa della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland DOI: 10.46586/tches.v2021.i4.283-325 URL: https://tches.iacr.org/index.php/TCHES/article/view/9067 Search ePrint Search Google In both hardware and software, masking can represent an effective means of hardening an implementation against side-channel attack vectors such as Differential Power Analysis (DPA). Focusing on software, however, the use of masking can present various challenges: specifically, it often 1) requires significant effort to translate any theoretical security properties into practice, and, even then, 2) imposes a significant overhead in terms of efficiency. To address both challenges, this paper explores the use of an Instruction Set Extension (ISE) to support masking in software-based implementations of a range of (symmetric) cryptographic kernels including AES: we design, implement, and evaluate such an ISE, using RISC-V as the base ISA. Our ISE-supported first-order masked implementation of AES, for example, is an order of magnitude more efficient than a software-only alternative with respect to both execution latency and memory footprint; this renders it comparable to an unmasked implementation using the same metrics, but also first-order secure.
##### BibTeX
@article{tches-2021-31318,
title={An Instruction Set Extension to Support Software-Based Masking},
journal={IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems},
publisher={Ruhr-Universität Bochum},
volume={2021, Issue 4},
pages={283-325},
url={https://tches.iacr.org/index.php/TCHES/article/view/9067},
doi={10.46586/tches.v2021.i4.283-325},
author={Si Gao and Johann Großschädl and Ben Marshall and Dan Page and Thinh Pham and Francesco Regazzoni},
year=2021
}