Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Using Templates to Attack Masked Montgomery Ladder Implementations of Modular Exponentiation

  • Conference paper
Information Security Applications (WISA 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 5379))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Since side-channel attacks turned out to be a major threat against implementations of cryptographic algorithms, many countermeasures have been proposed. Amongst them, multiplicative blinding is believed to provide a reasonable amount of security for public-key algorithms. In this article we show how template attacks can be used to extract sufficient information to recover the mask. Our practical experiments verify that one power trace suffices in order to remove such a blinding factor. In the course of our work we attacked a protected Montgomery Powering Ladder implementation on a widely used microcontroller. As a result we can state that the described attack could be a serious threat for public key algorithms implemented on devices with small word size.

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 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight 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

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Biham, E., Shamir, A.: Differential fault analysis of secret key cryptosystems. In: Kaliski Jr., B.S. (ed.) CRYPTO 1997. LNCS, vol. 1294, pp. 513–525. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Boneh, D., DeMillo, R.A., Lipton, R.J.: On the importance of checking cryptographic protocols for faults. In: Fumy, W. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 1997. LNCS, vol. 1233, pp. 37–51. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Kocher, P.C.: Timing attacks on implementations of diffie-hellman, RSA, DSS, and other systems. In: Koblitz, N. (ed.) CRYPTO 1996. LNCS, vol. 1109, pp. 104–113. Springer, Heidelberg (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Rivest, R.L., Shamir, A., Adleman, L.: A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems. Communications of the ACM 21(2), 120–126 (1978)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Kocher, P.C., Jaffe, J., Jun, B.: Differential power analysis. In: Wiener, M. (ed.) CRYPTO 1999. LNCS, vol. 1666, pp. 388–397. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Messerges, T.S., Dabbish, E.A., Sloan, R.H.: Power analysis attacks of modular exponentiation in smartcards. In: Koç, Ç.K., Paar, C. (eds.) CHES 1999. LNCS, vol. 1717, pp. 144–157. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Chari, S., Rao, J.R., Rohatgi, P.: Template attacks. In: Kaliski Jr., B.S., Koç, Ç.K., Paar, C. (eds.) CHES 2002. LNCS, vol. 2523, pp. 13–28. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Rechberger, C., Oswald, E.: Practical template attacks. In: Lim, C.H., Yung, M. (eds.) WISA 2004. LNCS, vol. 3325, pp. 443–457. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Medwed, M., Oswald, E.: Template Attacks on ECDSA. Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2008/081 (2008), http://eprint.iacr.org/

  10. Mangard, S., Oswald, E., Popp, T.: Power Analysis Attacks- Revealing the Secrets of Smart Cards. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  11. Kim, C., Ha, J., Moon, S., Yen, S.-M., Lien, W.-C., Kim, S.-H.: An Improved and Effcient Countermeasure against Power Analysis Attacks. Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2005/022 (2005), http://eprint.iacr.org/

  12. Fumaroli, G., Vigilant, D.: Blinded fault resistant exponentiation. In: Breveglieri, L., Koren, I., Naccache, D., Seifert, J.-P. (eds.) FDTC 2006. LNCS, vol. 4236, pp. 62–70. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Montgomery, P.L.: Speeding the Pollard and Elliptic Curve Methods of Factorization. Mathematics of Computation 48(177), 243–264 (1987)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  14. Joye, M., Yen, S.-M.: The montgomery powering ladder. In: Kaliski Jr., B.S., Koç, Ç.K., Paar, C. (eds.) CHES 2002. LNCS, vol. 2523, pp. 291–302. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications, Graz University of Technology, Inffeldgasse 16a, A–8010, Graz, Austria

    Christoph Herbst & Marcel Medwed

Authors
  1. Christoph Herbst
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marcel Medwed
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Information Security Research Division, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), 161 Gajeong Dong, YuseongGu, 305-700, Daejeon, Korea

    Kyo-Il Chung

  2. The Attached Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), 1 Yuseong-Post, 305-702, Daejeon, Korea

    Kiwook Sohn

  3. Computer Science Department, Google Inc. and Columbia University, 1214 Amsterdam Avenue, NY 10027, New York, USA

    Moti Yung

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Herbst, C., Medwed, M. (2009). Using Templates to Attack Masked Montgomery Ladder Implementations of Modular Exponentiation. In: Chung, KI., Sohn, K., Yung, M. (eds) Information Security Applications. WISA 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5379. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00306-6_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00306-6_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-00305-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-00306-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation