Paper 2016/129

ECDH Key-Extraction via Low-Bandwidth Electromagnetic Attacks on PCs

Daniel Genkin, Lev Pachmanov, Itamar Pipman, and Eran Tromer

Abstract

We present the first physical side-channel attack on elliptic curve cryptography running on a PC. The attack targets the ECDH public-key encryption algorithm, as implemented in the latest version of GnuPG's Libgcrypt. By measuring the target's electromagnetic emanations, the attack extracts the secret decryption key within seconds, from a target located in an adjacent room across a wall. The attack utilizes a single carefully chosen ciphertext, and tailored time-frequency signal analysis techniques, to achieve full key extraction.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Implementation
Publication info
Published elsewhere. Minor revision. CT-RSA 2016
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-29485-8_13
Keywords
side-channel attackelliptic curve cryptographyelectromagnetic emanations
Contact author(s)
tromer @ cs tau ac il
History
2016-02-17: revised
2016-02-14: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2016/129
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2016/129,
      author = {Daniel Genkin and Lev Pachmanov and Itamar Pipman and Eran Tromer},
      title = {ECDH Key-Extraction via Low-Bandwidth Electromagnetic Attacks on PCs},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2016/129},
      year = {2016},
      doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-29485-8_13},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/129}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/129}
}
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