IACR News item: 30 June 2013
PhD Database
Name: Yossef Oren
Topic: Secure Hardware - Physical Attacks and Countermeasures
Category: implementation
Description: Any cryptographic functionality, such as encryption or authentication, must be implemented in the real world before it can be put to practical use. This implementation typically takes the form of either a software implementation for a general-purpose device such as a personal computer, or as a dedicated secure hardware device, whose main purpose is to embody the cryptographic functionality. Examples of such secure hardware devices include smart cards, car alarm key fobs and computerized ballots. To evaluate the security of a cryptographic system, researchers look for flaws which allow an attacker to break the security assumptions of the system (for example, allowing an unauthorized party to view or modify a message intended for someone else). Physical attacks (also called implementation attacks) compromise the system by taking advantage of the physical aspects of the algorithm\'s implementation. Some physical attacks (such as, for example, power analysis) recover the secret key used by the secure device by analyzing physical effects produced during its use; Others (such as, for example, relay attacks) disable or otherwise limit its secure behaviour by exploiting design or implementation flaws or by changing the underlying assumptions made by the designers of the system. \r\n
\r\nThis research focuses on physical attacks on secure hardware devices and on countermeasures which protect against these attacks. My goals were to investigate vulnerabilities in current secure hardware implementations and to evaluate the effectiveness of current and proposed countermeasures against these vulnerabilities. The two main tracks of my research are side-channel analysis (and explicitly power analysis) and secure RFID.\r\n
\r\nIn the side-channel analysis track, I investigated ways of reducing the data requirements of power analysis attacks. We showed how to mount key recovery attacks on a secure device using an extremely low amount of measurement data. The main novelty of our[...]
Topic: Secure Hardware - Physical Attacks and Countermeasures
Category: implementation
Description: Any cryptographic functionality, such as encryption or authentication, must be implemented in the real world before it can be put to practical use. This implementation typically takes the form of either a software implementation for a general-purpose device such as a personal computer, or as a dedicated secure hardware device, whose main purpose is to embody the cryptographic functionality. Examples of such secure hardware devices include smart cards, car alarm key fobs and computerized ballots. To evaluate the security of a cryptographic system, researchers look for flaws which allow an attacker to break the security assumptions of the system (for example, allowing an unauthorized party to view or modify a message intended for someone else). Physical attacks (also called implementation attacks) compromise the system by taking advantage of the physical aspects of the algorithm\'s implementation. Some physical attacks (such as, for example, power analysis) recover the secret key used by the secure device by analyzing physical effects produced during its use; Others (such as, for example, relay attacks) disable or otherwise limit its secure behaviour by exploiting design or implementation flaws or by changing the underlying assumptions made by the designers of the system. \r\n
\r\nThis research focuses on physical attacks on secure hardware devices and on countermeasures which protect against these attacks. My goals were to investigate vulnerabilities in current secure hardware implementations and to evaluate the effectiveness of current and proposed countermeasures against these vulnerabilities. The two main tracks of my research are side-channel analysis (and explicitly power analysis) and secure RFID.\r\n
\r\nIn the side-channel analysis track, I investigated ways of reducing the data requirements of power analysis attacks. We showed how to mount key recovery attacks on a secure device using an extremely low amount of measurement data. The main novelty of our[...]
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