Abstract
Complexity-theoretic cryptography considers only abstract notions of computation, and hence cannot protect against attacks that exploit the information leakage (via electromagnetic fields, power consumption, etc.) inherent in the physical execution of any cryptographic algorithm. Such “physical observation attacks” bypass the impressive barrier of mathematical security erected so far, and successfully break mathematically impregnable systems. The great practicality and the inherent availability of physical attacks threaten the very relevance of complexity-theoretic security.
To respond to the present crisis, we put forward physically observable cryptography: a powerful, comprehensive, and precise model for defining and delivering cryptographic security against an adversary that has access to information leaked from the physical execution of cryptographic algorithms. Our general model allows for a variety of adversaries. In this paper, however, we focus on the strongest possible adversary, so as to capture what is cryptographically possible in the worst possible, physically observable setting. In particular, we
consider an adversary that has full (and indeed adaptive) access to any leaked information;
show that some of the basic theorems and intuitions of traditional cryptography no longer hold in a physically observable setting; and
construct pseudorandom generators that are provably secure against all physical-observation attacks.
Our model makes it easy to meaningfully restrict the power of our general physically observing adversary. Such restrictions may enable schemes that are more efficient or rely on weaker assumptions, while retaining security against meaningful physical observations attacks.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Proceedings of the Twenty First Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, Seattle, Washington, May 15-17 (1989)
Agrawal, D., Archambeault, B., Rao, J.R., Rohatgi, P.: The EM side-channel(s). In: Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems Conference (CHES 2002) (2002)
Alexi, W., Chor, B., Goldreich, O., Schnorr, C.: RSA and Rabin functions: Certain parts are as hard as the whole. SIAM J. Computing 17(2), 194–209 (1988)
Anderson, R., Kuhn, M.: Tamper resistance — a cautionary note. In: The Second USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce (November 1996)
Anderson, R., Kuhn, M.: Low cost attacks on tamper resistant devices. In: Fifth International Security Protocol Workshop (April 1997)
Biham, E., Shamir, A.: Differential fault analysis of secret key cryptosystems. In: Kaliski Jr., B.S. (ed.) CRYPTO 1997. LNCS, vol. 1294, pp. 513–525. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)
Blum, M., Micali, S.: How to generate cryptographically strong sequences of pseudo-random bits. SIAM Journal on Computing 13(4), 850–863 (1984)
Boneh, D., DeMillo, R., Lipton, R.: On the importance of checking cryptographic protocols for faults. In: Fumy, W. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 1997. LNCS, vol. 1233, pp. 37–51. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)
Chari, S., Jutla, C., Rao, J.R., Rohatgi, P.: Towards sound approaches to counteract power analysis attacks. In: Wiener [29], pp. 398–412
Diffie, W., Hellman, M.E.: New directions in cryptography. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory IT-22(6), 644–654 (1976)
Even, S., Goldreich, O., Micali, S.: On-line/off-line digital signatures. Journal of Cryptology 9(1), 35–67 (1996)
Gennaro, R., Lysyanskaya, A., Malkin, T., Micali, S., Rabin, T.: Tamper Proof Security: Theoretical Foundations for Security Against Hardware Tampering. In: Proceedings of the Theory of Cryptography Conference (2004)
Goldreich, O., Levin, L.: A hard-core predicate for all one-way functions. In: ACM [1], pp. 25–32
Goldreich, O.: Foundations of Cryptography: Basic Tools. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2001)
Goldreich, O., Micali, S.: (unpublished)
Goldreich, O., Goldwasser, S., Micali, S.: How to Construct Random Functions. Journal of the ACM 33(4), 792–807 (1986)
Håstad, J., Impagliazzo, R., Levin, L.A., Luby, M.: Construction of pseudorandom generator from any one-way function. SIAM Journal on Computing 28(4), 1364–1396 (1999)
Ishai, Y., Sahai, A., Wagner, D.: Private circuits: Securing hardware against probing attacks. In: Boneh, D. (ed.) CRYPTO 2003. LNCS, vol. 2729, pp. 463–481. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Jaffe, J., Kocher, P., Jun, B.: United states patent 6,510,518: Balanced cryptographic computational method and apparatus for leak minimizational in smartcards and other cryptosystems, January 21 (2003)
Kocher, P., Jaffe, J., Jun, B.: Differential power analysis. In: Wiener [29], pp. 388–397
Lamport, L.: Constructing digital signatures from a one way function. Technical Report CSL-98, SRI International (October 1979)
Merkle, R.C.: A certified digital signature. In: Brassard, G. (ed.) CRYPTO 1989. LNCS, vol. 435, pp. 218–238. Springer, Heidelberg (1990)
Moore, S.W., Anderson, R.J., Cunningham, P., Mullins, R., Taylor, G.: Improving smartcard security using self-timed circuits. In: Asynch 2002, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (2002)
Naor, M., Yung, M.: Universal one-way hash functions and their cryptographic applications. In: ACM [1], pp. 33–43
FIPS publication 46: Data encryption standard (1977), Available from: http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/
Quisquater, J.-J., Samyde, D.: Electromagnetic analysis (EMA): Measures and counter-measures for smart cards. In: Attali, S., Jensen, T. (eds.) E-smart 2001. LNCS, vol. 2140, pp. 200–210. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Rompel, J.: One-way functions are necessary and sufficient for secure signatures. In: Proceedings of the Twenty Second Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, Baltimore, Maryland, May 14–16, pp. 387–394 (1990)
Skorobogatov, S., Anderson, R.: Optical fault induction attacks. In: Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems Conference (CHES 2002) (2002)
Wiener, M. (ed.): CRYPTO 1999. LNCS, vol. 1666. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
Yao, A.C.: Theory and applications of trapdoor functions. In: 23rd Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, Chicago, Illinois, November 3-5, pp. 80–91. IEEE, Los Alamitos (1982)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Micali, S., Reyzin, L. (2004). Physically Observable Cryptography. In: Naor, M. (eds) Theory of Cryptography. TCC 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2951. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24638-1_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24638-1_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-21000-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-24638-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive