In cryptography, power analysis is a form of side channel attack in which the attacker studies the power consumption of a cryptographic hardware device (such as a smart card, tamper-resistant "black box", or integrated circuit). The attack can non-invasively extract cryptographic keys and other secret information from the device.
Simple power analysis (SPA) involves visually interpreting power traces, or graphs of electrical activity over time. Differential power analysis (DPA) is a more advanced form of power analysis which can allow an attacker to compute the intermediate values within cryptographic computations by statistically analyzing data collected from multiple cryptographic operations. SPA and DPA were introduced in the open cryptologic community in 1998 by Cryptography Research's Paul Kocher, Joshua Jaffe and Benjamin Jun.
Read more about Power Analysis: Simple Power Analysis, Differential Power Analysis, High-order Differential Power Analysis, Power Analysis and Algorithmic Security, Standards and Practical Security Concerns, Preventing Simple and Differential Power Analysis Attacks, Patents
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