How to break AES encryption using a side-channel attack?
Introduction Encryption is a fundamental part of modern digital systems. It protects sensitive information such as passwords, financial transactions, and personal data from unauthorized access. One of the most widely used encryption algorithms today is the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). It is trusted across industries because of its strong mathematical design, which makes it extremely difficult to break using conventional cryptographic attacks. So I know what you might be thinking. If AES is so secure, is it impossible to extract the secret key? The answer is not as simple as it seems. While AES itself is mathematically secure, it is always implemented on physical hardware such as micro-controllers, embedded systems, or processors. These physical devices do not operate in a perfectly isolated environment. During execution, they exhibit observable behavior such as power consumption, timing variations, and electromagne...