Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Smartcard Tamper Resistance

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security

  • 176 Accesses

Related Concepts

Compromising Emanations; Differential Power Analysis; Fault Attack; Side-Channel Analysis

Definition

Tamper-resistant cryptographic modules are devices intended for applications that need to protect stored cryptographic keys and intermediate results of algorithms against unauthorized access.

Theory and Applications

The most popular portable form is the smartcard, which has the form of a banking plastic card with embedded microcontroller. The typical interfaces are either five visible electrical contacts (for ground, power supply, reset, clock, and a bidirectional serial port) or an induction loop. Typical smartcard processors are 8-bit microcontrollers with a few hundred bytes of RAM and 4–64 kilobytes of ROM or nonvolatile writable memory (NVRAM). Battery-like small steel cans (“crypto buttons”), CardBus/PCMCIA modules, and various PCI plug-in cards for non-portable applications are other popular form factors for tamper-resistant modules.

Smartcards are used in...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 799.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 949.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Recommended Reading

  1. Kömmerling O, Kuhn MG (1999) Design principles for tamper-resistant smartcard processors. In: Proceedings of the USENIX workshop on smartcard technology (Smartcard’99), 10–11 May 2009, Chicago, IL. USENIX Association, Berkeley, pp 9–20, ISBN 1-880446-34-0

    Google Scholar 

  2. Weingart SH (1965) Physical security devices for computer subsystems: a survey of attacks and defenses. Workshop on cryptographic hardware and embedded systems (CHES 2000). Lecture notes in computer science, vol 1965. Springer, Berlin, pp 302–317

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 15 JJ Thomson Avenue, CB3 0FD, Cambridge, UK

    Markus Kuhn (Professor)

Authors
  1. Markus Kuhn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Computing Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Henk C. A. van Tilborg

  2. Center for Secure Information Systems, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030-4422, USA

    Sushil Jajodia

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this entry

Cite this entry

Kuhn, M. (2011). Smartcard Tamper Resistance. In: van Tilborg, H.C.A., Jajodia, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5906-5_228

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation