Atomicity and Regularity Principles Do Not Ensure Full Resistance of ECC Designs against Single-Trace Attacks

Area of Science:

• Cryptography
• Computer Engineering
• Embedded Systems

Background:

• Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is vital for securing resource-constrained devices like IoT sensors and wearables.
• Data confidentiality and integrity are critical in these applications, often impacting human safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the side-channel analysis (SCA) resistance of a fast dual-field Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) accelerator.
• To assess the effectiveness of common countermeasures against advanced SCA techniques.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a dual-field ECDSA accelerator supporting four NIST elliptic curves on ASIC and FPGA platforms.
• Analysis of resistance against Simple Side-Channel Analysis (SCA) and Differential Power Analysis (DPA) attacks.
• Evaluation of countermeasures, including atomic patterns and field multiplier activity.

Main Results:

• Atomic patterns, previously thought to ensure SCA resistance, are insufficient against simple SCA and horizontal address-bit DPA attacks.
• The proposed approach based on field multiplier activity demonstrates enhanced inherent resistance against SCA.
• The ECDSA accelerator's vulnerability to specific SCA attacks was demonstrated on both ASIC and FPGA.

Conclusions:

• Standard countermeasures like atomic patterns do not provide adequate protection for ECC accelerators against sophisticated SCA.
• Further research into SCA-resistant ECC implementations is necessary for secure IoT and wearable devices.
• The effectiveness of field multiplier activity as a countermeasure warrants further investigation.