Subcommittee on EM Leakage

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Our Focus

With the advance and spread of electronic devices and the rapid expansion of communication network infrastructure, Information and Communication Technology has become one of the most important factors in a large number of social activities. Currently, we enjoy a variety of information and telecommunication services for both public and commercial use.

In advanced information societies, information leakage and communication disorders associated with telecommunication devices (equipment and systems) have a significant impact on social and economic activities, and thus security technology that can ensure safety and reliability for such devices is becoming increasingly important. In particular, a major problem in recent years has been information leakage caused by unintentional or intentional radiation of electromagnetic (EM) fields from various devices. Such information leakage can be caused even by radiation of weak EM fields from devices that are compliant with existing public standards (e.g., for ergonomic design and radio-frequency interference). This problem suggests that it is necessary to regard EM radiation as "a signal containing information" and to pursue new security assessment and evaluation metrics.

In addressing the above problem, this subcommittee promotes research on the security of information and communication devices, equipment and systems on the basis of EM fields. The research topics of this subcommittee include, but are not limited to: theoretical study of information propagation via EM fields; acquisition, measurement, and analysis techniques for information leakage from information and communication devices via EM fields; modeling and simulation techniques for evaluation of EM information leakage; and countermeasures against attacks based on EM information leakage.

Role of the Subcommittee

• Provide a review pool for submissions of EM information Leakage to IEEE EMC Symposia
• Organize sessions, workshops/tutorials
• Liaison to international working groups and international symposia

 Related Links

• International Symposia on EM information Leakage
• Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (CHES)
• Fault Diagnosis and Tolerance in Cryptography (FDTC)

International Working Groups on EM information Leakage

ISO/IEC

• 27000-series: Information Security Management System (ISMS) Family of Standards

ITU-T

• K series: Protection against interference
• X.1051: Information security management system Requirements for telecommunication

NIST

• FIPS PUB 140-2: SECURITY REQUIREMENTS FOR CRYPTOGRAPHIC MODULE)
• FIPS PUB 140-3: DRAFT Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules (Revised Draft)

Current Activities

• IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility Special Section on Electromagnetic Information Security

Previous Activities

• Special session (EM Information Leakage) in IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility 2010
• Special session (Information System Security on EMC) in 2009 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Kyoto