Power Analysis and Algorithmic Security
Power analysis provides a way to "see inside" otherwise 'tamperproof' hardware. For example, DES's key schedule involves rotating 28-bit key registers. Many implementations check the least significant bit to see if it is a 1. If so, the device shifts the register right and prepends the 1 at the left end. If the bit is a zero, the register is shifted right without prepending a 1. Power analysis can distinguish between these processes, enabling an adversary to determine the bits of the secret key.
Implementations of algorithms such as AES and triple DES that are believed to be mathematically strong may be trivially breakable using power analysis attacks. As a result, power analysis attacks combine elements of algorithmic cryptanalysis and implementation security.
Read more about this topic: Power Analysis
Famous quotes containing the words power, analysis and/or security:
“The continuance of our passions is no more in our own power than the term of our life.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (16131680)
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“Happiness is peace after strife, the overcoming of difficulties, the feeling of security and well-being. The only really happy folk are married women and single men.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)