Asynchronous Cryptographic System: Side channel attacks through differential power analysis (DPA)

Improving cryptographic system security and integrity against side channel attacks have attracted significant attention by researcher during the last two decades. This paper presents Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous (GALS) based block cryptographic algorithm as part of a approach in the design of an asynchronous cryptographic system in order to safe guard against Differential Power analysis (DPA) side channel attacks [1]. DPA is an attack method which identifies the cipher key by increasing the correlation between the data processed by cipher key and its power consumption. Asynchronous cryptographic module is operated by data signal regardless of clock. Asynchronous design is suitable for cryptographic module due to its low power consumption and immunity from side channel attack.