Rambus extends DPA countermeasures license with NAGRA

Rambus has extended its licensing agreement with NAGRA, a digital TV division of the Kudelski Group, for the use of its Differential Power Analysis (DPA) countermeasures in NAGRA digital TV offerings.

“NAGRA has shown that security is a top priority and protection against side- channel attacks is an important component of their solutions,” said Dr. Martin Scott, general manager of Rambus’ Security Division.

“We are pleased to extend our DPA countermeasures agreement with NAGRA, providing security of their broadcast, broadband and mobile platforms that deliver premium entertainment to their customers.”

As we’ve previously discussed on Rambus Press, DPA is a form of side-channel attack that monitors variations in the electrical power consumption or electro-magnetic emissions from a target device. These measurements can then be used to obtain cryptographic keys and other sensitive information from semiconductors within the devices. Rambus DPA countermeasures comprise a broad range of software, hardware, and protocol techniques to protect these devices from side-channel attacks.

It should be noted that Rambus also offers a DPA Workstation (DPAWS) platform to customers and partners. Essentially, DPAWS analyzes hardware and software cryptographic implementations for vulnerabilities to power and electromagnetic side-channel attacks. Specifically, DPAWS enables users to quickly assess any vulnerability that an FPGA, ASIC, CPU or microcontroller may have to side-channel analysis.

In addition, DPAWS includes an integrated suite of hardware and data visualization software to aid in the identification and understanding of vulnerabilities in cryptographic chips.

This includes:

• A project library manager that delivers an integrated view of multiple data sets, scripts and analyses.
• A powerful trace display with an intuitive interface for easy analysis.
• Integrated scripting modules for MatLab and Python.

Additional information about Rambus’ DPA Workstation analysis platform and other DPA Countermeasure solutions can be found here.