Abstract
When the running time of a cryptographic algorithm is non-constant, timing measurements can leak information about the secret key. This idea, first publicly introduced by Kocher, is developed here to attack an earlier version of the CASCADE smart card. We propose several improvements on Kocher’s ideas, leading to a practical implementation that is able to break a 512-bit key in few hours, provided we are able to collect 300000 timing measurements (128-bit keys can be recovered in few seconds using a personal computer and less than 10000 samples). We therefore show that the timing attack represents an important threat against cryptosystems, which must be very seriously taken into account.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cascade (Chip Architecture for Smart CArds and portable intelligent DEvices). Project funded by the European Community, see http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/crypto/cascade
Dhem, J.F.: Design of an efficient public-key cryptographic library for RISC- based smart cards. PhD thesis, Université catholique de Louvain - UCL Crypto Group - Laboratoire de microélectronique (DICE) (May 1998)
Kocher, P.: 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)
Leroux, P.-A.: Timing cryptanalysis: Breaking security protocols by measuring transaction times. Master’s thesis, Université catholique de Louvain - UCL Crypto Group (June 1998)
Rivest, R.L., Shamir, A., Adleman, L.: A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems. In: Proc. Communications of the ACM, vol. 21, pp. 120–126. ACM Press, New York (1978)
Siegel, S.: Nonparametric Statistics. McGraw-Hill, New York (1956)
Willems, J.-L.: Timing attack of secured devices (in French). Masters thesis, Université catholique de Louvain - UCL Crypto Group (June 1998)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Dhem, JF., Koeune, F., Leroux, PA., Mestré, P., Quisquater, JJ., Willems, JL. (2000). A Practical Implementation of the Timing Attack. In: Quisquater, JJ., Schneier, B. (eds) Smart Card Research and Applications. CARDIS 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1820. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/10721064_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/10721064_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-67923-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44534-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive