Physical side-channel attacks on cryptographic systems
Nigel Paul Smart · Software Focus · 2000
A number of attacks on cryptographic systems depend on measuring physical characteristics of such systems while a given cryptographic operation is carried out. Such measurements could include the time needed to perform certain operations, the power consumed or any electromagnetic radiation produced. As such the physical measurement is producing a side-channel for the cryptographic system which leaks information about the internal secret key. NIGEL SMART surveys these attacks and describes some of the countermeasures that have been proposed in the literature. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. List of abbreviations AES = advanced encryption standard CRT = Chinese remainder theorem DES = data encryption standard DPA = differential power analysis DSA = digital signature algorithm EC-DSA = elliptical curve variant of digital signature algorithm EMF = electro-magnetic frequency PDA = personal digital assistant RSA = algorithm of Rivest-Shamir-Adleman SPA = simple power analysis