Rambus has renewed its Differential Power Analysis (DPA) countermeasures license agreement with Thales e-Security. Under the new five-year agreement, the Thales line of hardware security modules (HSMs) will be protected against side-channel attacks in a variety of systems, including high-performance data center appliances.
DPA Countermeasures
Tom’s Hardware highlights DPA countermeasures
Earlier this week, we announced that NVIDIA had licensed Rambus’ Differential Power Analysis (DPA) countermeasures to protect its visual computing products against side-channel attacks.
As Nathaniel Mott of Tom’s Hardware reports, Rambus’ countermeasures will help protect NVIDIA’s GPUs from side-channel attacks that steal encryption keys by measuring the power consumption of a device.
NVIDIA licenses DPA countermeasures
NVIDIA has licensed Rambus’ Differential Power Analysis (DPA) countermeasures to protect its visual computing products against side-channel attacks.
As Dr. Martin Scott, GM of Rambus’ Security Division notes, NVIDIA products help drive performance for some of the world’s most demanding users including gamers, designers and scientists.
Safecracking goes high-tech with side-channel attacks
During the early days of safecracking, rudimentary rotary locks were compromised by feel or sound to determine the correct combination. Following in this tradition, a security researcher known as Plore recently demonstrated how side-channel attacks can be exploited to unlock “high security” electronic safes without leaving any evidence of unauthorized access.
Protecting avionic systems from side-channel attack
Asaf Ashkenazi, a senior director of product marketing at Rambus’ security division, recently sat down with Neil Tyler of NewElectronicsto discuss the potential threat side-channel attacks pose to avionic systems.
As Tyler points out, encryption is typically used to protect aerospace platforms. Although it is difficult to break the cryptographic algorithm itself, devices can readily reveal information during routine operations from such factors as power consumption, heat dissipation, time of computation and electromagnetic leaks.
Rambus inks security licensing agreement with Idaho Scientific
Rambus has signed an agreement with Idaho Scientific to license its Differential Power Analysis (DPA) countermeasures. According to Dr. Martin Scott, general manager of Rambus’s Security Division, the DPA countermeasures will be used in Idaho Scientific’s FPGA and defense ASIC security IP Cores.
“Today’s leading aerospace and defense companies are looking for solutions to counter the increasing threat of side-channel attacks,” said Scott. “This licensing agreement will grant Idaho Scientific’s customers access to advanced DPA countermeasures – allowing them to safeguard the data integrity of applications requiring a high level of security, particularly those serving the aerospace and defense sectors.”