Security Analysis of the SPA-Resistant Fractional Width Method

• OKEYA Katsuyuki

  Systems Development Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd.

• TAKAGI Tsuyoshi

  Future University-Hakodate

• VUILLAUME Camille

  Systems Development Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd.

Abstract

Elliptic curves offer interesting possibilities for alternative cryptosystems, especially in constrained environments like smartcards. However, cryptographic routines running on such lightweight devices can be attacked with the help of "side channel information"; power consumption, for instance. Elliptic curve cryptosystems are not an exception : if no precaution is taken, power traces can help attackers to reveal secret information stored in tamper-resistant devices. Okeya-Takagi scheme (OT scheme) is an efficient countermeasure against such attacks on elliptic curve cryptosystems, which has the unique feature to allow any size for the pre-computed table : depending on how much memory is available, users can flexibly change the table size to fit their needs. Since the nature of OT scheme is different from other side-channel attack countermeasures, it is necessary to deeply investigate its security. In this paper, we present a comprehensive security analysis of OT scheme, and show that based on information leaked by power consumption traces, attackers can slightly enhance standard attacks. Then, we explain how to prevent such information leakage with simple and efficient modifications.

Journal

• IEICE TRANS. FUNDAMENTALS

  IEICE TRANS. FUNDAMENTALS 89 (1), 161-168, 2006-01-01

  The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers

Keywords

• elliptic curve cryptosystems
• smartcard
• fractional window
• side channel attacks
• flexibility
• discrete logarithm problem

Details

• CRID: 1571135652455835904
• NII Article ID: 110003486118
• NII Book ID: AA10826239
• ISSN: 09168508
• Text Lang: en
• Data Source:
  • CiNii Articles