Implementation of a secret sharing-based masking scheme against side-channel attack for ultra-lightweight ciphers in IoT

IoT applications consist of a group of small physical devices with sensing capabilities, working collaboratively to provide a specific functionality. Collaboration is realised by sending data from one or more devices in a network to another device or group of devices. Data stored or processed across an IoT ecosystem is likely to contain sensitive information, requiring strong confidentiality. Cryptographic algorithmic modules embedded on these physical devices are particularly vulnerable to side channel analysis. The most common countermeasure for block cipher implementations is masking, which basically randomises the variables to be protected by combining them with numerous random values. In this paper, masked implementation of lightweight block ciphers PRESENT and BORON is demonstrated. In the framework, secret sharing-based masking procedure is adapted as an alternative to Boolean masking. We then conduct a security analysis and empirical observations of our framework. To prove the novelty and practical adaptability of the proposed framework, implementation and obtained results are also presented in the paper.