Methodology for the Fault Analysis and Evaluation of True Random Number Generators

Mathilde Soucarros (1, 2) , Jessy Clédière (1) , Cécile Dumas (1) , Philippe Elbaz-Vincent (2)

1 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information
2 IF - Institut Fourier

True Random Number Generators have many uses, in particular they play a key role in security applications and cryptographic algorithms. Our interest lies in the quality of their generated random numbers. More specifically, for such utilizations, a slight deviation of the numbers from a "per- fect" behavior can have disastrous consequences. It is then necessary to devise schemes for the testing of these genera- tors in order to detect non-random properties of their num- bers. Moreover, one should consider them from an attacker point of view and use any means to try to perturbate their good functionnality. In this article we describe such exper- iments and several standard statistical tools for the genera- tors testing. We also present experimental results obtained through the study of a generator embedded in a processor in order to illustrate our methodology. We show that its pertu- bation leads to the apparition of dangerous deviations in its numbers distribution.

Mots clés: True Random Number Generator; Perturba- tion; Statistical tests; Temperature; Laser; Frequency injection; Radioactivity; X-rays

Domaines: Cryptographie et sécurité [cs.CR]; Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique; Statistiques [math.ST]; Théorie [stat.TH]; Probabilités [math.PR]

Mathilde Soucarros, Jessy Clédière, Cécile Dumas, Philippe Elbaz-Vincent. Methodology for the Fault Analysis and Evaluation of True Random Number Generators. 2012. ⟨hal-00678001⟩