Fault-Based Attack
Fault-based attacks are the family of methods that induce errors in cryptographic computations and exploit the faulty outputs to recover keys.
Purpose
They assess how cryptographic hardware implementations withstand active faults, covering DFA, safe-error attacks, the RSA-CRT Bellcore attack, and more.
Mechanism
Faults are injected at chosen moments via clock/voltage glitching, laser, or ion beams; faulty outputs are collected, and the key is recovered from the difference or branch information between faulty and correct outputs.
Use cases
- Hardware security assessment
- Smart-card penetration testing
- HSM fault-resistance certification