Improving side-channel attacks against pairing-based cryptography

Damien Jauvart (1) , Nadia El Mrabet (2) , Jacques A Fournier (3) , Louis Goubin (4)

1 LMV - Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Versailles
2 Mines Saint-Étienne MSE - École des Mines de Saint-Étienne
3 CEA - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives
4 PRISM - Parallélisme, Réseaux, Systèmes, Modélisation

Side-channel attacks are a serious threat against secret data involved in cryptographic calculations , as for instance pairing-based cryptography which is a promising tool for the IoT. We focus our work on Correlation Power Analysis (CPA) attack against a pairing implementation. We improve a vertical side-channel analysis attack and propose the first horizontal attack against a pairing implementation. First, we present a characterization of the multiplication that allows us to reduce by a factor of ten the number of side-channel traces required in order to perform a CPA attack against an implementation of Ate pairing. Secondly , we successfully attack the same implementation with only one trace by using the first horizontal attack path against pairing-based cryptography.

Mots clés: Side-channel attacks; Pairing-based cryptography; Collisions attack; Countermeasure

Domaines: Cryptographie et sécurité [cs.CR]; Systèmes embarqués

Damien Jauvart, Nadia El Mrabet, Jacques A Fournier, Louis Goubin. Improving side-channel attacks against pairing-based cryptography. Journal of Cryptographic Engineering, In press, ⟨10.1007/s13389-018-00201-3⟩. ⟨hal-02068387⟩