Fast Frame Rate Estimation in Electromagnetic Side-Channel Attacks on Public Systems

2026-09-23

AI Summary

This study addresses the high computational complexity associated with frame refresh rate estimation in electromagnetic side-channel attacks by proposing a low-complexity estimation algorithm that incorporates prior knowledge. The proposed method leverages signals acquired via software-defined radio and utilizes the target display resolution as a prior constraint to optimize the signal processing pipeline. By doing so, it significantly reduces the computational complexity of conventional discrete linear autocorrelation algorithms from O(N log N) to O(N). Experimental results demonstrate that the algorithm substantially improves computational efficiency while preserving estimation accuracy. This work thereby provides an efficient and feasible technical pathway for real-time electromagnetic side-channel analysis.

Abstract

Frame refresh rate estimation is a fundamental step in identifying compromising harmonic frequencies in electromagnetic side-channel attacks. Methods based on discrete linear autocorrelation (DLA) are robust across different scenarios and require a computational complexity of $O(N\log N)$ for a signal containing $N$ samples. This work proposes reducing this complexity to $O(N)$ by exploiting prior knowledge of the target system's display resolution, as is available for certain models of the Brazilian electronic voting machine. Experiments using software-defined radios show that the proposed method preserves the accuracy of the conventional approach in the evaluated scenarios.

Problem

• Electromagnetic side-channel attacks
• Frame refresh rate estimation
• Computational complexity
• Discrete linear autocorrelation

Innovation

• Electromagnetic Side-Channel Attacks
• Frame Rate Estimation
• Computational Complexity Reduction
• Discrete Linear Autocorrelation
• Software-Defined Radio