Highly-Efficient Galois Counter Mode Symmetric Encryption Core for the Space Data Link Security Protocol

In the last decades, the space sector has been the subject of significant technological improvements and investments from both government agencies and private companies, generating an increase in data rates and volumes of exchanged data. Accordingly, the security threats and the number of documented cyberattacks have grown. In order to meet the requirements of space applications, the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) has issued and maintained a series of reports and recommendations over the years, including a set of standards aimed at efficiently exploiting the communication channels. In this work, we present the implementation of an Advanced Encryption Standard - Galois/Counter Mode (AES-GCM) core on space-grade FPGAs, that is compliant with the latest CCSDS security standards and outperforms the state-of-the-art in terms of resource efficiency.