Secure and Efficient RNS Approach for Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Scalar multiplication, the main operation in elliptic curve cryptographic protocols, is vulnerable to side-channel (SCA) and fault injection (FA) attacks. An efficient countermeasure for scalar multiplication can be provided by using alternative number systems like the Residue Number System (RNS). In RNS, a number is represented as a set of smaller numbers, where each one is the result of the modular reduction with a given moduli basis. Under certain requirements, a number can be uniquely transformed from the integers to the RNS domain (and vice versa) and all arithmetic operations can be performed in RNS. This representation provides an inherent SCA and FA resistance to many attacks and can be further enhanced by RNS arithmetic manipulation or more traditional algorithmic countermeasures. In this paper, extending our previous work, we explore the potentials of RNS as an SCA and FA countermeasure and provide an description of RNS based SCA and FA resistance means. We propose a secure and efficient Montgomery Power Ladder based scalar multiplication algorithm on RNS and discuss its SCAFA resistance. The proposed algorithm is implemented on an ARM Cortex A7 processor and its SCA-FA resistance is evaluated by collecting preliminary leakage trace results that validate our initial assumptions

LPKI - A Lightweight Public Key Infrastructure for the Mobile Environments

The non-repudiation as an essential requirement of many applications can be provided by the asymmetric key model. With the evolution of new applications such as mobile commerce, it is essential to provide secure and efficient solutions for the mobile environments. The traditional public key cryptography involves huge computational costs and is not so suitable for the resource-constrained platforms. The elliptic curve-based approaches as the newer solutions require certain considerations that are not taken into account in the traditional public key infrastructures. The main contribution of this paper is to introduce a Lightweight Public Key Infrastructure (LPKI) for the constrained platforms such as mobile phones. It takes advantages of elliptic curve cryptography and signcryption to decrease the computational costs and communication overheads, and adapting to the constraints. All the computational costs of required validations can be eliminated from end-entities by introduction of a validation authority to the introduced infrastructure and delegating validations to such a component. LPKI is so suitable for mobile environments and for applications such as mobile commerce where the security is the great concern.Comment: 6 Pages, 6 Figure

Families of fast elliptic curves from Q-curves

We construct new families of elliptic curves over \FF_{p^2} with efficiently computable endomorphisms, which can be used to accelerate elliptic curve-based cryptosystems in the same way as Gallant-Lambert-Vanstone (GLV) and Galbraith-Lin-Scott (GLS) endomorphisms. Our construction is based on reducing \QQ-curves-curves over quadratic number fields without complex multiplication, but with isogenies to their Galois conjugates-modulo inert primes. As a first application of the general theory we construct, for every $p > 3$, two one-parameter families of elliptic curves over \FF_{p^2} equipped with endomorphisms that are faster than doubling. Like GLS (which appears as a degenerate case of our construction), we offer the advantage over GLV of selecting from a much wider range of curves, and thus finding secure group orders when $p$ is fixed. Unlike GLS, we also offer the possibility of constructing twist-secure curves. Among our examples are prime-order curves equipped with fast endomorphisms, with almost-prime-order twists, over \FF_{p^2} for $p = 2^{127}-1$ and $p = 2^{255}-19$

A Generic Approach to Searching for Jacobians

We consider the problem of finding cryptographically suitable Jacobians. By applying a probabilistic generic algorithm to compute the zeta functions of low genus curves drawn from an arbitrary family, we can search for Jacobians containing a large subgroup of prime order. For a suitable distribution of curves, the complexity is subexponential in genus 2, and O(N^{1/12}) in genus 3. We give examples of genus 2 and genus 3 hyperelliptic curves over prime fields with group orders over 180 bits in size, improving previous results. Our approach is particularly effective over low-degree extension fields, where in genus 2 we find Jacobians over F_{p^2) and trace zero varieties over F_{p^3} with near-prime orders up to 372 bits in size. For p = 2^{61}-1, the average time to find a group with 244-bit near-prime order is under an hour on a PC.Comment: 22 pages, to appear in Mathematics of Computatio

A versatile Montgomery multiplier architecture with characteristic three support

We present a novel unified core design which is extended to realize Montgomery multiplication in the fields GF(2n), GF(3m), and GF(p). Our unified design supports RSA and elliptic curve schemes, as well as the identity-based encryption which requires a pairing computation on an elliptic curve. The architecture is pipelined and is highly scalable. The unified core utilizes the redundant signed digit representation to reduce the critical path delay. While the carry-save representation used in classical unified architectures is only good for addition and multiplication operations, the redundant signed digit representation also facilitates efficient computation of comparison and subtraction operations besides addition and multiplication. Thus, there is no need for a transformation between the redundant and the non-redundant representations of field elements, which would be required in the classical unified architectures to realize the subtraction and comparison operations. We also quantify the benefits of the unified architectures in terms of area and critical path delay. We provide detailed implementation results. The metric shows that the new unified architecture provides an improvement over a hypothetical non-unified architecture of at least 24.88%, while the improvement over a classical unified architecture is at least 32.07%