Using Modular Extension to Provably Protect Edwards Curves Against Fault Attacks

International audienceFault injection attacks are a real-world threat to cryptosystems, in particular asymmetric cryptography. In this paper, we focus on countermeasures which guarantee the integrity of the computation result, hence covering most existing and future fault attacks. Namely, we study the modular extension protection scheme in previously existing and newly contributed variants of the countermeasure on elliptic curve scalar multiplication (ECSM) algorithms. We find that an existing countermeasure is incorrect and we propose new " test-free " variant of the modular extension scheme that fixes it. We then formally prove the correctness and security of modular extension: specifically, the fault non-detection probability is inversely proportional to the security parameter. Finally, we implement an ECSM protected with test-free modular extension during the elliptic curve operation to evaluate the efficient of this method on Edwards and twisted Edwards curves

Fault attacks on RSA and elliptic curve cryptosystems

This thesis answered how a fault attack targeting software used to program EEPROM can threaten hardware devices, for instance IoT devices. The successful fault attacks proposed in this thesis will certainly warn designers of hardware devices of the security risks their devices may face on the programming leve

Degenerate Curve Attacks

Invalid curve attacks are a well-known class of attacks against implementations of elliptic curve cryptosystems, in which an adversary tricks the cryptographic device into carrying out scalar multiplication not on the expected secure curve, but on some other, weaker elliptic curve of his choosing. In their original form, however, these attacks only affect elliptic curve implementations using addition and doubling formulas that are independent of at least one of the curve parameters. This property is typically satisfied for elliptic curves in Weierstrass form but not for newer models that have gained increasing popularity in recent years, like Edwards and twisted Edwards curves. It has therefore been suggested (e.g. in the original paper on invalid curve attacks) that such alternate models could protect against those attacks. In this paper, we dispel that belief and present the first attack of this nature against (twisted) Edwards curves, Jacobi quartics, Jacobi intersections and more. Our attack differs from invalid curve attacks proper in that the cryptographic device is tricked into carrying out a computation not on another elliptic curve, but on a group isomorphic to the multiplicative group of the underlying base field. This often makes it easy to recover the secret scalar with a single invalid computation. We also show how our result can be used constructively, especially on curves over random base fields, as a fault attack countermeasure similar to Shamir\u27s trick

THC: Practical and Cost-Effective Verification of Delegated Computation

Homomorphic cryptography is used when computations are delegated to an untrusted third-party. However, there is a discrepancy between the untrustworthiness of the third-party and the silent assumption that it will perform the expected computations on the encrypted data. This may raise serious privacy concerns, for example when homomorphic cryptography is used to outsource resource-greedy computations on personal data (e.g., from an IoT device to the cloud). In this paper we show how to cost-effectively verify that the delegated computation corresponds to the expected sequence of operations, thus drastically reducing the necessary level of trust in the third-party. Our approach is based on the well-known modular extension scheme: it is transparent for the third-party and it is not tied to a particular homomorphic cryptosystem nor depends on newly introduced (and thus less-studied) cryptographic constructions. We provide a proof-of-concept implementation, THC (for trustable homomorphic computation ), which we use to perform security and performance analyses. We then demonstrate its practical usability, in the case of a toy electronic voting system

Survey for Performance & Security Problems of Passive Side-channel Attacks Countermeasures in ECC

The main objective of the Internet of Things is to interconnect everything around us to obtain information which was unavailable to us before, thus enabling us to make better decisions. This interconnection of things involves security issues for any Internet of Things key technology. Here we focus on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) for embedded devices, which offers a high degree of security, compared to other encryption mechanisms. However, ECC also has security issues, such as Side-Channel Attacks (SCA), which are a growing threat in the implementation of cryptographic devices. This paper analyze the state-of-the-art of several proposals of algorithmic countermeasures to prevent passive SCA on ECC defined over prime fields. This work evaluates the trade-offs between security and the performance of side-channel attack countermeasures for scalar multiplication algorithms without pre-computation, i.e. for variable base point. Although a number of results are required to study the state-of-the-art of side-channel attack in elliptic curve cryptosystems, the interest of this work is to present explicit solutions that may be used for the future implementation of security mechanisms suitable for embedded devices applied to Internet of Things. In addition security problems for the countermeasures are also analyzed

Diversity and Transparency for ECC

Generating and standardizing elliptic curves to use them in a cryptographic context is a hard task. In this note, we don’t make an explicit proposal for an elliptic curve, but we deal with the following issues. Security: We give a list of criteria that should be satisfied by a secure elliptic curve. Although a few of these criteria are incompatible, we detail what we think are the best choices for optimal security. Transparency: We sketch a way to generate a curve in a fully transparent way so that it can be trusted and not suspected to belong to a (not publicly known to be) vulnerable class. In particular, since the computational cost of verifying the output of such a process may be quite high, we sketch out the format of a certificate that eases the computations. We think that this format might deserve being standardized

Theory and Practice of Cryptography and Network Security Protocols and Technologies

In an age of explosive worldwide growth of electronic data storage and communications, effective protection of information has become a critical requirement. When used in coordination with other tools for ensuring information security, cryptography in all of its applications, including data confidentiality, data integrity, and user authentication, is a most powerful tool for protecting information. This book presents a collection of research work in the field of cryptography. It discusses some of the critical challenges that are being faced by the current computing world and also describes some mechanisms to defend against these challenges. It is a valuable source of knowledge for researchers, engineers, graduate and doctoral students working in the field of cryptography. It will also be useful for faculty members of graduate schools and universities

On the Analysis of Public-Key Cryptologic Algorithms

The RSA cryptosystem introduced in 1977 by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman is the most commonly deployed public-key cryptosystem. Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) introduced in the mid 80's by Neal Koblitz and Victor Miller is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to RSA offering competitive performance due the use of smaller key sizes. Most recently hyperelliptic curve cryptography (HECC) has been demonstrated to have comparable and in some cases better performance than ECC. The security of RSA relies on the integer factorization problem whereas the security of (H)ECC is based on the (hyper)elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem ((H)ECDLP). In this thesis the practical performance of the best methods to solve these problems is analyzed and a method to generate secure ephemeral ECC parameters is presented. The best publicly known algorithm to solve the integer factorization problem is the number field sieve (NFS). Its most time consuming step is the relation collection step. We investigate the use of graphics processing units (GPUs) as accelerators for this step. In this context, methods to efficiently implement modular arithmetic and several factoring algorithms on GPUs are presented and their performance is analyzed in practice. In conclusion, it is shown that integrating state-of-the-art NFS software packages with our GPU software can lead to a speed-up of 50%. In the case of elliptic and hyperelliptic curves for cryptographic use, the best published method to solve the (H)ECDLP is the Pollard rho algorithm. This method can be made faster using classes of equivalence induced by curve automorphisms like the negation map. We present a practical analysis of their use to speed up Pollard rho for elliptic curves and genus 2 hyperelliptic curves defined over prime fields. As a case study, 4 curves at the 128-bit theoretical security level are analyzed in our software framework for Pollard rho to estimate their practical security level. In addition, we present a novel many-core architecture to solve the ECDLP using the Pollard rho algorithm with the negation map on FPGAs. This architecture is used to estimate the cost of solving the Certicom ECCp-131 challenge with a cluster of FPGAs. Our design achieves a speed-up factor of about 4 compared to the state-of-the-art. Finally, we present an efficient method to generate unique, secure and unpredictable ephemeral ECC parameters to be shared by a pair of authenticated users for a single communication. It provides an alternative to the customary use of fixed ECC parameters obtained from publicly available standards designed by untrusted third parties. The effectiveness of our method is demonstrated with a portable implementation for regular PCs and Android smartphones. On a Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone our implementation generates unique 128-bit secure ECC parameters in 50 milliseconds on average

Cryptographic Key Distribution In Wireless Sensor Networks Using Bilinear Pairings

It is envisaged that the use of cheap and tiny wireless sensors will soon bring a third wave of evolution in computing systems. Billions of wireless senor nodes will provide a bridge between information systems and the physical world. Wireless nodes deployed around the globe will monitor the surrounding environment as well as gather information about the people therein. It is clear that this revolution will put security solutions to a great test. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a challenging environment for applying security services. They differ in many aspects from traditional fixed networks, and standard cryptographic solutions cannot be used in this application space. Despite many research efforts, key distribution in WSNs still remains an open problem. Many of the proposed schemes suffer from high communication overhead and storage costs, low scalability and poor resilience against different types of attacks. The exclusive usage of simple and energy efficient symmetric cryptography primitives does not solve the security problem. On the other hand a full public key infrastructure which uses asymmetric techniques, digital signatures and certificate authorities seems to be far too complex for a constrained WSN environment. This thesis investigates a new approach to WSN security which addresses many of the shortcomings of existing mechanisms. It presents a detailed description on how to provide practical Public Key Cryptography solutions for wireless sensor networks. The contributions to the state-of-the-art are added on all levels of development beginning with the basic arithmetic operations and finishing with complete security protocols. This work includes a survey of different key distribution protocols that have been developed for WSNs, with an evaluation of their limitations. It also proposes Identity- Based Cryptography (IBC) as an ideal technique for key distribution in sensor networks. It presents the first in-depth study of the application and implementation of Pairing- Based Cryptography (PBC) to WSNs. This is followed by a presentation of the state of the art on the software implementation of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) on typical WSNplatforms. New optimized algorithms for performing multiprecision multiplication on a broad range of low-end CPUs are introduced as well. Three novel protocols for key distribution are proposed in this thesis. Two of these are intended for non-interactive key exchange in flat and clustered networks respectively. A third key distribution protocol uses Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) to secure communication within a heterogeneous sensor network. This thesis includes also a comprehensive security evaluation that shows that proposed schemes are resistant to various attacks that are specific to WSNs. This work shows that by using the newest achievements in cryptography like pairings and IBC it is possible to deliver affordable public-key cryptographic solutions and to apply a sufficient level of security for the most demanding WSN applications