Modern implementations of encryption algorithms on CPU’s that use frequent memory lookups of precomputed functions, are vulnerable to Cache based Side­Channel Attacks. The ρ­-VEX processor, a runtime reconfigurable VLIW processor developed at the Computer and Quantum Engineering department at the TU Delft was identified to possibly allow for special countermeasure implementations against Cache Attacks, because of its unique Cache architecture, hardware context switching and timing behaviour. In this thesis, the possibility to use the runtime reconfigurability against Cache based Side­Channel Attacks of the ρ-­VEX processor is investigated. The ability for the ρ­-VEX to alter its execution time based on configuration size, interfere with its own Cache state based on configuration and dynamically switch contexts between Caches are explored. Simple variants of the attacks Prime+Probe, Evict+Time and Final Round Collision Attack are implemented and ran on two setups that simulate practical scenarios of the ρ­-VEX. These are a standalone setup and a setup with a second context sharing the processor with an arbitrary workload based on the PowerStone benchmarks, which causes noise by itself and can amplify countermeasures. The ρ-­VEX was instanced on the Genesys2 FPGA development board. We have shown an implementation of timing noise through configuration size variations called nLane increased the amount of samples required for the timing Attacks Evict+Time and Final Round Collision to around 800x more traces. An implementation of access noise through swapping contexts called CacheSwap achieved 800x more traces for Evict+Time and 225x more traces for Final Round Collision when executed in a shared processor. The effect on Prime+Probe was only strong for higher chances to swap, but the overhead for these percentages was considered too high. An implementation of isolating lookups over private Caches, called ScatterRound, had additional benefits aside from preventing collisions. It made our Evict+Time Attack take 160x, Prime+Probe Attack 175x and Final Round Collision Attack 225x as many samples to be successful. We have shown that the overhead associated with 10% n­Lane and 10% CacheSwap was reasonable, but ScatterRound was concluded to require a specific execution setup to achieve performance costs that are acceptable. ... Read more

This thesis describes the process of creating the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of a reconfigurable test measurement setup for Internet of Things sensors, which is part of the Bachelor Graduation Project in the Electrical Engineering programme of the Delft University of Technology. The GUI is part of the project in which a system is created to test sensors in a reconfigurable way, meaning different packages are able to be tested by supplying different levels of voltage and types of signal shapes. Test results can be graphically visualized within the GUI. The user can run the GUI on a built-in system PC, their laptop and via a GPIB connection. The thesis describes how the configuration in the GUI interact with the hardware control software. This process involves a selection of fundamental requirements, a full system design and implementation descriptions of each sub design, followed by the testing and discussion of the implementations.
A clear discussion is made about the selection of software platform and why LabVIEW was selected as platform in the creation of the GUI. Alternative solutions on the other software platforms are explored for separate sub designs as well. Certain software engineering principles are applied to perform tests and to construct the general structure of the GUI code in LabVIEW. ... Read more