Hi,
I’m interested in the ChipWhisperer boards but I don’t understand if I should buy the basic or the two parts one. Could someone tell me the technical differences (I’m french and I don’t understand the description precisely)? What could be the details I have to look at to help me choose?
Thanks.
Hello,
The “2-Part” board is the exact same as the ChipWhisperer-Lite, it’s just been broken into two parts (as at newae.com/sidechannel/cwdocs/nae … tion-apart).
The 2-Part version is available if you want to target other devices than the default target, or plan on expanding. If you buy the single-part version, it can easily be converted into the 2-part version!
Say I want to have a software implementation of AES, then I could use the single-part version and make it run the code.
If I want to test a hardware component, I would prefer the two-part one so I can plug my component to the ChipWhisperer board.
Is that right?
Hello,
Yup - that is correct! Although with the 2-part version it also comes with the exact same XMEGA target, so you can use the 2-part version to run your AES software implementation too. If you want to attack a hardware target, you’d either need the 2-part version OR to snap apart the ‘1-part’ version to allow you to connect an external target.
Regards,
-Colin
OK, I understand.
Another question: I have a hardware target I want to test. Is it easy to plug the power line to the cw board (two-part version) to analyze it?
If it’s an arbitrary hardware target, you’d need to insert something like a shunt resistor right at the chip (i.e.: lifting a TQFP VCC line). You also might need to clean up the power supply a bit… often I just make special target boards for that purpose.
I’d like to have a hardware AES solution. I’ve looked at opencores.org/project,avs_aes It’s performing well on my de0-nano board but it needs an Altera FPGA so I wanted to plug the cw board on the de0-nano board to spy on it. Do you think of a better (simpler) way to implement an AES hardware directly on the cw board?
Ah… if it’s FPGA, you might look at using an H-Field probe. If I get some time I’ll try to implement a project on a simple dev kit (such as Avnet LX9 board) and see how well it performs using the H-Field probe. I’ve only tried so far using SASEBO/SAKURA boards, which have nice clean power supplies.
So, what would be best if I have some independent device to test would be to buy the cw board (two part version) and this probe: store.newae.com/h-field-probe/
It would be enough to test the security of my device?
Hello,
You may also need the LNA to go with that (which requires a simple +3V power supply and cable). You’ll need to do some work either way w.r.t. clock routing to get the ChipWhisperer-Lite to successfully get the clock frequency of the device. If it’s a FPGA this shouldn’t be an issue, just output the AES clock somewhere.
edit: I should note attacking an external target is a moderate amount of work, just in terms of understanding the leakage model and possibly implementing this. I don’t want to make it seem like things will just magically work is all!
Regards,
-Colin
OK
Could you explain me everything I should buy (and why) and how to connect them to make a real attack bench for an external FPGA or a harware external device.
Sorry for this but I prefer to buy it in one command and evaluate the price.
Thank you in advance.
Hello,
As of right now this is only documented at newae.com/sidechannel/cwdocs/ . I’ll try to add some details of attacking a SAKURA-G board which would give you an FPGA example, but it may still take some time.
Basically the CW-Lite 2-Part Version ($325) + Probe Set ($260) + Breakout Board ($27) would give you enough hardware to connect to most devices. It may still requires some development for interfacing to your specific HW however.
-Colin
What is the Breakout Board used for?
Hello,
It just has some simple connectors for adding jumpers to other boards (i.e. CLKIN, CLKOUT, trigger). It’s not strictly necessary if you are OK adding jumpers to the headers as-is!