SPA resistant elliptic curve cryptosystem using addition chains. (15th October 2007)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Byrne, Andrew; Crowe, Francis; Marnane, William Peter; Meloni, Nicolas; Tisserand, Arnaud; Popovici, Emanuel
• Is Part Of: International journal of high performance systems architecture. Volume 1:Number 2(2007)
• Page Start: 133
• Page End: 142
• Publication Date: 2007-10-15
• Subjects: elliptic curve cryptography -- elliptic curves -- addition chains -- side channel attacks -- simple power analysis -- SPA -- reconfigurable architecture -- cryptographic processors; Computer architecture -- Periodicals; Computer systems -- Periodicals; High performance computing -- Periodicals; 004.205
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1751-6528

Abstract

There has been a lot of interest in recent years in the problems faced by cryptosystems due to side channel attacks. Algorithms for elliptic curve point scalar multiplication such as the double-and-add method are prone to such attacks. By making use of special addition chains, it is possible to implement a Simple Power Analysis (SPA) resistant cryptosystem. In this paper, a reconfigurable architecture for a cryptographic processor is presented. A SPA resistant algorithm for point multiplication is implemented and is shown to be faster than the double-and-add method. Post place and route results for the processor are given.