When Clocks Fail: On Critical Paths and Clock Faults

Whilst clock fault-attacks are known to be a serious security threat, an in-depth explanation of such faults still seems in order. This work provides a theoretical analysis, backed by practical experiments, explaining when and how clock faults occur. Understanding and modeling the chain of events following a transient clock alteration allows to accurately predict faulty circuit behavior. A prediction fully confirmed by injecting variable-duration faults at predetermined clock cycles. We illustrate the process by successfully attacking an fpga aes implementation using a dll-based fpga platform (one-bit fault attack).