Algorithm-level Error Detection for ECSM
Agustín Domínguez-Oviedo, M.A. Hasan · 2009
For some applications, elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is an attractive choice because it achieves the same level of security with a much smaller key size in comparison with other schemes such as those that are based on integer factorization or discrete logarithm. Unfortunately, cryptosystems including those based on elliptic curves have been subject to attacks. For example, fault-based attacks have been shown to be a real threat in today’s cryptographic implementations. For security reasons, especially to provide resistance against fault-based attacks, it is very important to verify the correctness of computations in ECC applications. We deal with protections to fault attacks against ECSM at algorithm level. To this end, we use the concepts of point verification (PV) and coherency check (CC). We investigate the error detection coverage of PV and CC for the Montgomery ladder ECSM algorithm. Additionally, we propose two algorithms based on the double-and-add-always method that are resistant to the safe error (SE) attack. We demonstrate that one of these algorithms also resists the sign change fault (SCF) attack. 1