HD/HW Models - Software AES

Embedded Security Side Channel Power Analysis
1

Hi,
For software implementations of AES, is HW a better model than the HD? Can you please explain regarding the choice of the leakage model?

Thanks,
Ron

2

Hi Ron,

I don’t think any of the hamming distance models will work for typical software AES implementations since they won’t transition directly from one state to another (i.e. you won’t go directly from the input of a round to the output like you can with hardware AES).

That being said, you may want to test this yourself: which of the models will break software AES?

Alex