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On the Evaluation of Deep Learning-Based Side-Channel Analysis

Author: Wu L. (author)
Perin G. (author)
Picek S. (author)
Publication venue
Publication date: 01/01/2022
Field of study

Deep learning-based side-channel analysis is rapidly positioning itself as a de-facto standard for the most powerful profiling side-channel analysis.The results from the last few years show that deep learning techniques can efficiently break targets that are even protected with countermeasures. While there are constant improvements in making the deep learning-based attacks more powerful, little is done on evaluating the attacks’ performance. Indeed, how the evaluation process is done today is not different from what was done more than a decade ago from the perspective of evaluation metrics. This paper considers how to evaluate deep learning-based side-channel analysis and whether the commonly used approaches give the best results. To that end, we consider different summary statistics and the influence of algorithmic randomness on the stability of profiling models. Our results show that besides commonly used metrics like guessing entropy, one should also show the standard deviation results to assess the attack performance properly. Even more importantly, using the arithmetic mean for guessing entropy does not yield the best results, and instead, a median value should be used.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Cyber Securit

TU Delft Repository

Focus is Key to Success: A Focal Loss Function for Deep Learning-Based Side-Channel Analysis

Author: Wu L. (author)
Perin G. (author)
Picek S. (author)
Kerkhof Maikel (author)
Publication venue
Publication date: 01/01/2022
Field of study

The deep learning-based side-channel analysis represents one of the most powerful side-channel attack approaches. Thanks to its capability in dealing with raw features and countermeasures, it becomes the de facto standard approach for the SCA community. The recent works significantly improved the deep learning-based attacks from various perspectives, like hyperparameter tuning, design guidelines, or custom neural network architecture elements. Still, insufficient attention has been given to the core of the learning process - the loss function. This paper analyzes the limitations of the existing loss functions and then proposes a novel side-channel analysis-optimized loss function: Focal Loss Ratio (FLR), to cope with the identified drawbacks observed in other loss functions. To validate our design, we 1) conduct a thorough experimental study considering various scenarios (datasets, leakage models, neural network architectures) and 2) compare with other loss functions used in the deep learning-based side-channel analysis (both “traditional” ones and those designed for side-channel analysis). Our results show that FLR loss outperforms other loss functions in various conditions while not having computational overhead like some recent loss function proposals.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Cyber Securit

TU Delft Repository