Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Development & Technical Discussion => Topic started by: Mike Hearn on February 25, 2011, 10:18:36 AM



Title: Mental note: ensure EC crypto is not susceptible to side channel attacks
Post by: Mike Hearn on February 25, 2011, 10:18:36 AM
For people working on mobile clients:

   http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/attack-can-extract-crypto-keys-mobile-device-signals-021611

OpenSSL has apparently been balanced to try and avoid this type of attack. I don't know about crypto++ or Bouncy Castle.


Title: Re: Mental note: ensure EC crypto is not susceptible to side channel attacks
Post by: 0x6763 on February 25, 2011, 02:49:24 PM
I suspect Bouncy Castle doesn't, or at least I didn't see any comments about it in the Bouncy Castle source code yet.  I've mostly only looked at the EC code, though.  What does OpenSSL do to try to avoid this type of attack?


Title: Re: Mental note: ensure EC crypto is not susceptible to side channel attacks
Post by: Mike Hearn on February 25, 2011, 03:38:15 PM
All operations are constant time. I don't know if you have to do more than that to be safe from power/rf analysis too.