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Electromagnetic Attack

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Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security

Introduction

Kerchoff's laws (see maxim's) recommend basing cryptographic security solely on the secrecy of the key and not on the concealment of the encryption algorithm. A cryptosystem that uses some specific encryption method may, however, be imperfect as to its physical implementation. One or several leakages of all possible kinds may in that case provide an attacker with relevant information. Physical signals can often be used as a leakage source to conduct side channel cryptanalysis [9] (see also side-channel attacks) Time, power consumption or electromagnetic radiations can, for instance, be used. Electromagnetic radiation leakage has been known for a long time now, [6] and it also constitutes the subject of very recent research [11]. When analysing cryptographic implementations, the near and far field of cryptographic processors may offer a leakage source that should be seriously taken into account.

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It is quite difficult to fix with precision the advent of side channel...

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References

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Authors
  1. Jean-Jacques Quisquater
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  2. Samyde David
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Henk C. A. van Tilborg

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© 2005 International Federation for Information Processing

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Quisquater, JJ., David, S. (2005). Electromagnetic Attack. In: van Tilborg, H.C.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. Springer, Boston, MA . https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-23483-7_120

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