Side channel attacks on smart home systems: A short overview (2024)

FAQs

What is a side-channel attack? ›

Definitions: An attack enabled by leakage of information from a physical cryptosystem. Characteristics that could be exploited in a side-channel attack include timing, power consumption, and electromagnetic and acoustic emissions.

Side channel attacks can be used to extract the keys from a device like a smart card. In real-world terms, this allows an attacker to load or reset balances and extract or reset device PINs. A side channel attack may target the firmware itself or a key to the firmware that is running on the device.

Bad actors are always on the hunt for access to IoT devices. The most common cyber-attacks on smart homes include: Device hijacking: Attackers can take over devices and can sometimes gain access to the entire network of smart home devices through one unprotected machine.

Side-channel attacks (SCAs) aim at extracting secrets from a chip or a system, through measurement and analysis of physical parameters. Examples of such parameters include supply current, execution time, and electromagnetic emission.

Randomizing Operations: Introducing random operations, such as an unexpected delay, algorithmic noise, changing the data access patterns, or implementing dummy instructions into their code, makes it difficult for attackers to correlate side-channel information with specific data or keys.

Side channel attacks on mobile and wearable systems involve malware accessing sensor data, such as the gyroscope and accelerometer, potentially filtering the data, then transmitting it to a remote server.

A covert channel is an intentional communication between a sender and a receiver via a medium not designed to be a communication channel. In a side channel, the “sender” in an unsuspecting victim and the “receiver” is the attacker.

We use two different side-channels for our attacks: a passive power side-channel and an active fault attack based on altering the supply voltage of the controlled PUF.

Physical enclosures can reduce the risk of surreptitious installation of microphones (to counter acoustic attacks) and other micro-monitoring devices (against CPU power-draw or thermal-imaging attacks). Another countermeasure (still in the first category) is to jam the emitted channel with noise.

Smart home devices can be hacked by malicious actors who want to access your data, spy on you, or cause damage. Hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in the device software, firmware, or hardware, or use phishing, malware, or brute force attacks to gain access to your network or accounts.

How a smart home could be at risk from hackers? ›

The devices themselves may have little or no built-in security, making them susceptible to attacks by software that is designed to gain unauthorized access to a computer or home network, potentially allowing your personal information to be exposed.

How do I stop my smart home from spying on me? Carefully review and understand the privacy policies of each device. Utilize privacy settings to customize preferences, disable unnecessary features, and control data sharing. Regularly update device firmware to address security vulnerabilities and enhance protection.

For IoT devices, attacks that target information leakage through physical side-channels (e.g., a power side-channel) are a major threat in many use cases because IoT devices can be accessed easily by a hostile third party.

Some Real-World Examples of Side Channel Attacks

They demonstrated that the key used influenced the time required for decryption operations. By analyzing these timing variations, attackers could deduce the private key.

A timing attack is a type of side-channel attack that exploits the amount of time a computer process runs to gain knowledge about or access a system. There are practical implementations of timing attacks against some encryption methods.

Physical side channel attacks involve observing physical properties of the target (such as power consumption and electromagnetic leakage) to infer secrets. Typical targets include implementations of cryptographic algorithms, both in hardware and software.

A covert channel is an intentional communication between a sender and a receiver via a medium not designed to be a communication channel. In a side channel, the “sender” in an unsuspecting victim and the “receiver” is the attacker.