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UID:dac_DAC 2026_sess317_RESEARCH296@linklings.com
SUMMARY:A Remote Side-Channel Attack on Post-Quantum Key Encapsulation Mec
 hanisms: A Case Study of ML-KEM on Intel x86
DESCRIPTION:Mona Hashemi (National University of Singapore); Qianmei Wu (Z
 hejiang University); Fan Zhang (Zhejiang University; Key Laboratory of Blo
 ckchain and Cyberspace Governance of Zhejiang Province; Alibaba-Zhejiang U
 niversity Joint Research Institute of Frontier Technologies;ZJU-Hangzhou G
 lobal Scientific and Technological Innovation Center; Jiaxing Research Ins
 titute, Zhejiang University); Shivam Bhasin (Temasek Laboratories, Nanyang
  Technological University); and Trevor E. Carlson (National University of 
 Singapore)\n\nAs post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) schemes are standardized
 , evaluating their resilience to side-channel attacks (SCA) becomes critic
 al. While most prior studies focus on physical SCAs, the practicality of r
 emote SCAs on full implementations of standardized PQCs remains largely un
 explored. In this paper, we present the first generic remote power SCA on 
 the Module-Lattice-Based Key Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM), evaluated o
 n a modern Intel x86 processor. Our result demonstrates that power traces 
 can be exploited remotely as a plaintext-checking oracle, enabling secret 
 key recovery despite the scheme's theoretical IND-CCA security. Using ML-K
 EM as a case study, we show that complex microarchitectural mechanisms suc
 h as speculative execution and dynamic power management do not eliminate e
 xploitable power leakage. We evaluated our attack on the PQClean implement
 ation, achieving secret key recovery with a success rate up to 99.5%. Thes
 e findings provide a realistic assessment of PQC leakage behavior on high-
 end processors and underscore the need for architecture-aware leakage mode
 ls and co-designed hardware–software defenses to ensure secure PQC deploym
 ent in practice.\n\nTrack: EDA7-II. Physical Design and Verification, Desi
 gn\n\nSession Chairs: Christian Pilato (Politecnico di Milano); Mohsen Ima
 ni (University of California, Irvine); Flavio Ponzina (San Diego State Uni
 versity); Amin Farshidi (Cadence Design Systems, Inc.); Yonggan Fu (Georgi
 a Institute of Technology, NVIDIA); Dimitrios Tsaras (Huawei, Hong Kong Un
 iversity of Science and Technology (HKUST)); Anh Nguyen (Fujitsu Limited);
  Ruiyang Qin (Villanova University); Jiliang Zhang (Hunan University); Men
 g Li (Peking University); and Rassul Bairamkulov (Advanced Micro Devices (
 AMD))\n\n
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