Enhanced power analysis attack using chosen message against RSA hardware implementations

SPA (Simple Power Analysis) attacks against RSA cryptosystems are enhanced by using chosen-message scenarios. One of the most powerful chosen-message SPA attacks was proposed by Yen et. al. in 2005, which can be applied to various algorithms and architectures, and can defeat the most popular SPA countermeasure using dummy multiplication. Special input values of −1 and a pair of −X and X can be used to identify squaring operations performed depending on key bit stream. However, no experimental result on actual implementation was reported. In this paper, we implemented some RSA processors on an FPGA platform and demonstrated that Yen’s attack with a signal filtering technique clearly reveal the secret key information in the actual power waveforms.