Fast Scalar Multiplication on Elliptic Curve Cryptography in Selected Intervals Suitable For Wireless Sensor Networks

International audienceIn Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), providing a robust security mechanism with limited energy resources is very challenging because of sensor node's limited resources (computation, bandwidth, memory). Asymmetric-key can fulfill the requirement, but if the number of nodes is large, symmetric-key cryptography is the best natural method because of its scalability. Asymmetric-key cryptography is power-hungry; nevertheless, Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems (ECC) are feasible and more flexible for sensor nodes. Scalar multiplication is the most widely used operation on ECC. Various methods for fast scalar multiplication exist, but they are based on the binary/ternary representation of the scalar. In this paper, we present a novel technique to make fast scalar multiplication on Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems over prime field for light-weight embedded devices like sensor nodes. Our method significantly reduces the computation of scalar multiplication by an equivalent representation of points based on point order in a given interval. Since our technique can act as a support for most existing methods, after an analytical and efficiency analysis, we implement and evaluate its performance in different scenari

Fast Elliptic Curve Cryptography Using Optimal Double-Base Chains

In this work, we propose an algorithm to produce the double-base chains that optimize the time used for computing an elliptic curve cryptosystem. The double-base chains is the representation that combining the binary and ternary representation. By this method, we can reduce the Hamming weight of the expansion, and reduce the time for computing the scalar point multiplication (Q = rS), that is the bottleneck operation of the elliptic curve cryptosystem. This representation is very redundant, i.e. we can present a number by many expansions. Then, we can select the way that makes the operation fastest. However, the previous works on double-bases chain have used a greedy algorithm, and their solutions are not optimized. We propose the algorithm based on the dynamic programming scheme that outputs the optimized the double-bases chain. The experiments show that we have reduced the time for computing the scalar multiplication by 3.88-3.95%, the multi-scalar multiplication by 2.55-4.37%, and the multi-scalar multiplication on the larger digit set by 3.5-12%

Efficient Unified Arithmetic for Hardware Cryptography

The basic arithmetic operations (i.e. addition, multiplication, and inversion) in finite fields, GF(q), where q = pk and p is a prime integer, have several applications in cryptography, such as RSA algorithm, Diffie-Hellman key exchange algorithm [1], the US federal Digital Signature Standard [2], elliptic curve cryptography [3, 4], and also recently identity based cryptography [5, 6]. Most popular finite fields that are heavily used in cryptographic applications due to elliptic curve based schemes are prime fields GF(p) and binary extension fields GF(2n). Recently, identity based cryptography based on pairing operations defined over elliptic curve points has stimulated a significant level of interest in the arithmetic of ternary extension fields, GF(3^n)

Efficient algorithms for pairing-based cryptosystems

We describe fast new algorithms to implement recent cryptosystems based on the Tate pairing. In particular, our techniques improve pairing evaluation speed by a factor of about 55 compared to previously known methods in characteristic 3, and attain performance comparable to that of RSA in larger characteristics.We also propose faster algorithms for scalar multiplication in characteristic 3 and square root extraction over Fpm, the latter technique being also useful in contexts other than that of pairing-based cryptography

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%

Multi-Base Chains for Faster Elliptic Curve Cryptography

This research addresses a multi-base number system (MBNS) for faster elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). The emphasis is on speeding up the main operation of ECC: scalar multiplication (tP). Mainly, it addresses the two issues of using the MBNS with ECC: deriving optimized formulas and choosing fast methods. To address the first issue, this research studies the optimized formulas (e.g., 3P, 5P) in different elliptic curve coordinate systems over prime and binary fields. For elliptic curves over prime fields, affine Weierstrass, Jacobian Weierstrass, and standard twisted Edwards coordinate systems are reviewed. For binary elliptic curves, affine, Lambda-projective, and twisted mu4-normal coordinate systems are reviewed. Additionally, whenever possible, this research derives several optimized formulas for these coordinate systems. To address the second issue, this research theoretically and experimentally studies the MBNS methods with respect to the average chain length, the average chain cost, and the average conversion cost. The reviewed MBNS methods are greedy, ternary/binary, multi-base NAF, tree-based, and rDAG-based. The emphasis is on these methods\u27 techniques to convert integer t to multi-base chains. Additionally, this research develops bucket methods that advance the MBNS methods. The experimental results show that the MBNS methods with the optimized formulas, in general, have good improvements on the performance of scalar multiplication, compared to the single-base number system methods