IMPROVED METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROTECTING PUBLIC KEY SCHEMES FROM TIMING AND FAULT ATTACKS

摘要

Improved methods and apparatus for protecting public key schemes based on modular exponentiation (including RSA and Diffie-Hellman) from indirect cryptanalytic techniques such as timing and fault attacks. Known methods for making the implementation of number-theoretic schemes resistant to such attacks typically double their running time, whereas the novel methods and apparatus described in this patent add only negligible overhead. This improvement is particularly significant in smart card and software-based implementations, in which the modular exponentiation operation is quite slow, and doubling its time may be an unacceptable solution.