Hardware Podcasts

An Interview with Colin O'Flynn - Aspirated Adamantine Attacks

The Amp Hour · 5 Mar 2015 · 1h 08m · Episode 239

What this episode covers

Colin O'Flynn, creator of the ChipWhisperer project and a PhD student at Dalhousie University, explains how side-channel attacks like differential power analysis (DPA) can break AES-256 encryption on embedded devices by measuring tiny power fluctuations. He discusses the hardware design of the ChipWhisperer, including its high-speed ADC and FPGA, and contrasts the open-source ChipWhisperer Lite with the more feature-rich original version. O'Flynn also details his manufacturing decisions, explaining why he chose local Canadian fabrication over China to avoid component substitution issues and ensure quality for this niche, high-precision tool.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Atmel, DigiKey, MakerBot, Altium
Products
ChipWhisperer, ChipWhisperer Lite
Chips
SAM 3, FPGA
Also
AES-256, Differential Power Analysis, Dalhousie University, Kickstarter, Hackaday, DEF CON, Black Hat, Python, MATLAB

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