Optical Cryptanalysis: Recovering Cryptographic Keys from Power LED Light Fluctuations

Ben Nassi; Ofek Vayner; Etay Iluz; Dudi Nassi; Or Hai Cohen; Jan Jancar; Daniel Genkin; Eran Tromer; Boris Zadov; Yuval Elovici

Paper 2023/1068

Optical Cryptanalysis: Recovering Cryptographic Keys from Power LED Light Fluctuations

Ben Nassi

, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Ofek Vayner, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Etay Iluz, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Dudi Nassi, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Or Hai Cohen, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Jan Jancar, Masaryk University

Daniel Genkin, Georgia Institute of Technology

Eran Tromer, Columbia University

Boris Zadov, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Yuval Elovici, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Abstract

Although power LEDs have been integrated in various devices that perform cryptographic operations for decades, the cryptanalysis risk they pose has not yet been investigated. In this paper, we present optical cryptanalysis, a new form of cryptanalytic side-channel attack, in which secret keys are extracted by using a photodiode to measure the light emitted by a device’s power LED and analyzing subtle fluctuations in the light intensity during cryptographic operations. We analyze the optical leakage of power LEDs of various consumer devices and the factors that affect the optical SNR. We then demonstrate end-to-end optical cryptanalytic attacks against a range of consumer devices (smartphone, smartcard, and Raspberry Pi, along with their USB peripherals) and recover secret keys (RSA, ECDSA, SIKE) from prior and recent versions of popular cryptographic libraries (GnuPG, Libgcrypt, PQCrypto-SIDH) from a maximum distance of 25 meters

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Attacks and cryptanalysis
Publication info: Preprint.
Contact author(s): nassib @ post bgu ac il
ofekvay @ post bgu ac il
etayil @ post bgu ac il
nassid @ post bgu ac il
ora2 @ post bgu ac il
445358 @ mail muni cz
genkin @ gatech edu
et2555 @ columbia edu
zadov @ post bgu ac il
elovici @ bgu ac il
History: 2023-07-11: approved; 2023-07-09: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2023/1068
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2023/1068,
      author = {Ben Nassi and Ofek Vayner and Etay Iluz and Dudi Nassi and Or Hai Cohen and Jan Jancar and Daniel Genkin and Eran Tromer and Boris Zadov and Yuval Elovici},
      title = {Optical Cryptanalysis: Recovering Cryptographic Keys from Power {LED} Light Fluctuations},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2023/1068},
      year = {2023},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1068}
}