Differential Power Analysis of the SKINNY Family of Block Ciphers

Abstract

The SKINNY family of lightweight block ciphers is well-researched in terms of standard cryptanalysis, but little has been done in the field of power analysis attacks. By sequentially dividing and conquering, univariate Differential Power Analysis attacks are performed against SKINNY. As the resulting diffusion from MixColumns introduces redundancy in terms of leakage, we introduce an alternative placement scheme for the tweak material in the related-tweakey setting to minimize leakage of the key material.