Aspect-Oriented Fault Injection for the Non-Intrusive Resilience Evaluation of Cryptographic Hardware Models
Received: 19 January 2026 | Revised: 11 February 2026, 14 February 2026, and 27 February 2026 | Accepted: 28 February 2026 | Online: 4 April 2026
Corresponding author: Hassen Mestiri
Abstract
Evaluating the resilience of sophisticated cryptographic hardware against fault injection attacks necessitates high-speed simulation environments. At the Electronic System Level (ESL), SystemC provides a valuable framework for constructing fast functional models. However, traditional fault injection techniques require direct and intrusive code modifications to these models, which complicates the security assessment process. This paper proposes a novel methodology that circumvents this limitation by leveraging Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP). A non-intrusive fault injection and detection environment is introduced, where faults are woven into SystemC cryptographic models using AspectC++, eliminating the need for source code alterations and offering a practical alternative to complex physical cryptanalysis. This approach is validated through a thorough case study on a SystemC model of the LED lightweight algorithm, focusing on two critical aspects: the efficacy of AOP for accurate fault detection and its overhead regarding simulation performance and executable size. The results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively evaluates a design's efficiency against fault attacks. It is also confirmed that AOP integration imposes a negligible impact on simulation time, preserving the speed advantages of ESL simulation while enabling seamless security analysis.
Keywords:
Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), LED lightweight algorithm, fault injection attacks, hardware security, data transmission securityReferences
V. Muttillo, L. Pomante, M. Santic, and G. Valente, "SystemC-based Co-Simulation/Analysis for System-Level Hardware/Software Co-Design," Computers and Electrical Engineering, vol. 110, Sept. 2023, Art. no. 108803. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compeleceng.2023.108803
S. H. Lim, W. W. Suh, J. Y. Kim, and S. Y. Cho, "RISC-V Virtual Platform-Based Convolutional Neural Network Accelerator Implemented in SystemC," Electronics, vol. 10, no. 13, June 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10131514
B. Rashidi, "Fault-tolerant and error-correcting 4-bit S-boxes for cryptography applications with multiple errors detection," The Journal of Supercomputing, vol. 80, no. 2, pp. 1464–1490, Jan. 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-023-05530-7
P. Bhoyar, P. Sahare, M. F. Hashmi, S. B. Dhok, and R. Deshmukh, "Lightweight architecture for fault detection in Simeck cryptographic algorithms on FPGA," International Journal of Information Technology, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 337–343, Jan. 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41870-023-01593-0
P. Ravi, A. Chattopadhyay, J. P. D’Anvers, and A. Baksi, "Side-channel and Fault-injection attacks over Lattice-based Post-quantum Schemes (Kyber, Dilithium): Survey and New Results," ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, vol. 23, no. 2, Nov. 2024, Art. no. 35. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3603170
H. Mestiri and I. Barraj, "High-Speed Hardware Architecture Based on Error Detection for KECCAK," Micromachines, vol. 14, no. 6, May 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/mi14061129
A. C. Canto, A. Sarker, J. Kaur, M. M. Kermani, and R. Azarderakhsh, "Error Detection Schemes Assessed on FPGA for Multipliers in Lattice-Based Key Encapsulation Mechanisms in Post-Quantum Cryptography," IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 791–797, July 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TETC.2022.3217006
S. Azzopardi, J. Ellul, R. Falzon, and G. J. Pace, "AspectSol: A Solidity Aspect-Oriented Programming Tool with Applications in Runtime Verification," in Runtime Verification, 2022, pp. 243–252. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17196-3_13
A. A. Magableh and A. M. R. Al Sobeh, "Securing Software Development Stages Using Aspect-Orientation Concepts." International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications, vol. 9, no. 6, Nov. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5121/ijsea.2018.9605
J. Guo, T. Peyrin, A. Poschmann, and M. Robshaw, "The LED Block Cipher," in Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems – CHES 2011, 2011, pp. 326–341. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23951-9_22
G. Kiczales, E. Hilsdale, J. Hugunin, M. Kersten, J. Palm, and W. G. Griswold, "An Overview of AspectJ," in ECOOP 2001 — Object-Oriented Programming, 2001, pp. 327–354. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45337-7_18
C. L. Vidal-Silva, E. Madariaga, T. Pham, F. Johnson, L. A. Urzua, and L. Carter, "JPIAspectZ: A Formal Requirement Specification Language for Joint Point Interface AOP Applications," Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 4338–4341, Aug. 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48084/etasr.2774
Z. Chen, Y. Zhu, and Z. Wang, "Design and Implementation of an Aspect-Oriented C Programming Language," Reproduction Package for Article `Design and Implementation of an Aspect-Oriented C Programming Language’, vol. 8, no. OOPSLA1, Art. no. 117, Dec. 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3649834
A. Bhar, S. Sengupta, and S. Choudhury, "Aspect-Oriented Approach of Non-Functional Requirements for Embedded System-Based IoT Applications," IEEE Access, vol. 13, pp. 129451–129460, 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3585417
T. R. Muck, A. A. Frohlich, M. Gernoth, and W. Schroder-Preikschat, "Implementing OS components in hardware using AOP," SIGOPS Oper. Syst. Rev., vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 64–72, Oct. 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2146382.2146395
J. M. P. Cardoso et al., "LARA: an aspect-oriented programming language for embedded systems," in Proceedings of the 11th annual international conference on Aspect-oriented Software Development, Nov. 2012, pp. 179–190. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2162049.2162071
A. M. R. AlSobeh and A. A. Magableh, "BlockASP: A Framework for AOP-Based Model Checking Blockchain System," IEEE Access, vol. 11, pp. 115062–115075, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3325060
A. Nusayr and J. Cook, "Using AOP for detailed runtime monitoring instrumentation," in Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Dynamic Analysis, Apr. 2009, pp. 8–14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2134243.2134246
Downloads
How to Cite
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Hassen Mestiri, Mariem Bouraoui, Mohsen Machhout
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after its publication in ETASR with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
