Journal of Computer and Communications, 2014, 2, 1-9 Published Online March 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jcc http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jcc.2014.24001 How to cite this paper: Ghafar, A.H.A. and Ariffin, M.R.K. (2014) Timing Attack Analysis on AAβ Cryptosystem. Journal of Computer and Communications, 2, 1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jcc.2014.24001 Timing Attack Analysis on AAβ Cryptosystem A. H. A. Ghafar1, M. R. K. Ariffin2 1Al-Kindi Cryptography Research Laboratory, Institute for Mathematical Research, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, Malaysia 2Mathematics Department, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, Malaysia Email: amirghafar87 @gmail.com, rezal@upm.edu.my Received September 2013 Abstract Timing attack is an attack on the implementation of a cryptographic primitive. The attack collects leaked secret data via certain implementation techniques either on software or hardware. This paper provides an analysis of a theoretical timing attack on the AAβ algorithm. The attack dis- cussed in this paper gives avenues for secure implementation of AAβ against timing attacks. The simulation of the attack is important to provide invulnerability features for the algorithm in order to be implemented and embedded on applications. At the end of the attack, a method to overcome it will be introduced and it is called AAβ blinding. Keywords Timing Attack; Side-Channel Attack; Public-Key Cryptosystem; AAβ Public Key Cryptosystem 1. Introduction The cryptosystem utilizes the integer factorization problem (IFP) coupled with the square root problem as its cryptographic primitive. The algorithm claims to have a complexity order of compared to renowned RSA and ECC algorithms which both have in encryption and decryption process [1]. Although Rabin cryptosystem also shares the same cryptographic primitive, but its decryption is 4-to-1 which makes the de- crypted plaintext hard to distinguish. But overcomes this decryption failure without losing computational power and speed. Several cryptanalysis have been conducted on this cryptosystem and have pointed out that to find solution for the cryptosystem is infeasible [1]. However, this cryptosystem has never been analyzed or attacked from imple- mentation point of view. The reason for this is because has not yet been implemented in a real-world application. Nevertheless, it is important to launch a theoretical attack on its implementation to provide future guidance for future implementers. This paper intends to do that and we will use one common type of side chan- nel attack which is timing attack. Timing attack uses leaked information of a cryptographic implementation to derive the secret keys of crypto- graphic primitives. The first timing attack was developed to recover secret key, d in RSA implementation of smart card [2]. Consider we have decryption equation of RSA for is n-bit number and is -bit number. By measuring the computational time of the RSA decryption, the attack is able to collect the private key bit per bit. In many cases, the attacker has unlimited access to the decryption machine but does
A. H. A. Ghafar, M. R. K. Ariffin not have any knowledge about the secret key. In order to prevent this kind of attack on RSA, Rivest introduced a defense mechanism called RSA blinding [3]. It works by generating a random number, which will ’blind’ the product of and essentially makes it impossible for attacker to determine the computational time. We will make use of this blinding concept to come out with our own strategy for the algorithm. Like the RSA, random numbers also play a role in our blinding mechanism to make sure that the decryption process time will be obscured. This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 will dive into some algorithms that are commonly used to op- timize both modular multiplication and exponentiation. Section 3 gives an overview of algorithm while we will discuss on how timing attack is to be conducted on the algorithm in Section 4. We will also discuss the blinding in Section 5 to prevent any further timing attack on it in the future. Future works and conclusion are in Section 6 and 7 respectively. 2. Design of Timing Attacks on Modular Exponentiation and Multiplication The process of modular exponentiation and modular multiplication is essentially very time consuming process especially when involves exponentiation of very large integers. They can slow down the whole process of de- cryption and this is non-economical in commercial applications such as smart cards and real-time web commu- nication which need fast response time. However, various methods have been introduced to speed up both oper- ations. First and the most basic method to increase the computational speed of this equation is repeated squaring al- gorithm. This algorithm is mostly used in power constrained hardware such as smart card due to its low com- plexity in calculation. However, it was exploited by Kotcher in the earliest timing attack on cryptosystem’s hardware. Consider the decryption process of RSA. Kotcher cleverly observes this process as signal which has been corrupted by the ’noise’ of unknown bits of . The attack emulates the decryption process and captures the calculated time of decryption using chosen pri- vate keys until each bits of actual is exposed. Generally, for chosen private keys, and which have size of -bits 011 11 , ,,,0,,, i inn u uuuuuu −+ − =…… 011 11 , ,,,0,,, i inn v vvvvvv −+ − =…… the only difference between both chosen private keys is bit at point (Assume that both and already have same arrangement of bits with actual private key, up until position ). Let be the calculation time to complete decryption using the actual private key, . Also let be the calculation time from bit to using first emulated key, and be the calculation time from bit to using second emulated key, . We assign Hence, variance of timing after point i for both and are regarded as ( ) ( ) varvarvar( ) juu e CTT T ′ −= + and ( ) ( )( ) varvar var jvve CTTT ′ −= + where is the measurement error. If we assume has the correct bit (i.e. has bit 0 at point ), then due to increased similarities in in terms of bits compared to . However, this kind of attack is only successful if the implementation uses repeated squaring algorithm. In more advanced RSA implementations, repeated squaring algorithm is complemented with Montgomery reduc- tion algorithm for every multiplication operation. Montgomery reduction algorithm, skips modular reduction
A. H. A. Ghafar, M. R. K. Ariffin which uses the ‘expensive’ division operation. Montgomery reduction transforms the multiplication of to (mod )and(mod )aaRN bbR N ′′ = = for which we said and are in Montgomery form and for [4]. The algorithm executes multiplication in reduction where a computer can easily and cheaply calculate because the division of in binary is just a simple shift by bits. One good explanation and example of Montgomery reduction can be read here [5]. The pseudo codes of both algorithms and how they work together are explained in Algorithm 1. To calculate modular exponentiation, most implementations use the Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT) ap- proach. This approach divides the modular exponentiation which is in the form of modular to the form of modulo and . Values of and q are normally stored in decryption machine. The logic behind this approach is because the value of and are smaller than , hence the modular exponentiation will be more computationally efficient due to their decreased size. To get the original result, the results in modulo and modulo are combined. Later, Schindler produced a significant observation for RSA implementation that uses repeated squaring, CRT and Montgomery reduction approach [6]. Schindler observes that the extra reduction in Montgomery algorithm to ensure (refer Algorithm 2) caused atiming difference for different and . From this observa- tion, Schindler derived the probability of an extra reduction occurring for which is (mod ) (extra reduction)2 ap PR = (1) Observation from (1) shows that there is discontinuity after certain number of extra reduction process which happens to be a multiple of . When a is approached by values less than a multiple of as shown in Figure 1, number of reduction Algorithm 1. Repeated squaring algorithm. Algorithm 2. Montgomery algorithm.
A. H. A. Ghafar, M. R. K. Ariffin Figure 1. Number of extra reductions in a Montgomery re- duction as function (1) of the input a. increases. But, right after the multiple of , the number of extra reduction drops significantly. This drop can help us to derive the multiple of hence factorize . Another algorithm known as the Karatsuba multiplication is regarded as the most efficient multiplication al- gorithm of two numbers with the same numbers of digits [7]. This works by assuming that addition is much cheaper than multiplication operation. The algorithm is explained as follows. Given that we want to multiply and that have n numbers of digits. We can write Basic arithmetic shows that ( ) () ?? ?? ? ?? 11 01 01 11 21 0 0011011 121 0 0011011 (10 )(10 ) 1010 10 10 10 nn nn n nn abaabb ab ababab abab abab −− −− − −− ⋅=+⋅+ ⋅ =+⋅ +⋅ +⋅ = +++⋅ If we define It is easy to see that ?210 1010 zaabbzz =−− −− And the product of and is ( ) ?? 121 01 2 1010 . nn ab zzz −− + ⋅= +⋅⋅ Karatsuba algorithm cuts the work factor in long normal multiplication to only . Both Montgomery multiplication and Karatsuba algorithm have been extensively used in real implementation of RSA. RSA implementation in OpenSSL used repeated squaring, Montgomery multiplication and sliding windows while utilized Karatsuba when multiplying a and b that have same size. There are two vulnerabilities which have been exploited in this attack. First is the extra reduction happened in Montgomery algorithm. This has been explained in Schindler’s attack while the other is the usage of long multiplication and Karatsuba algorithm. Both multiplications show different time significantly [8]. Brumley and Boneh showed how a timing attack launched on RSA implementation in OpenSSL [9]. The attack is so elegant, it was done remotely between two servers in two different buildings. Every time the Mongomery form of C
A. H. A. Ghafar, M. R. K. Ariffin slightly moves toward less than , the number of extra reductions in the Montgomery reduction (Algorithm 2) increases. It involves the multiplication of two numbers that are about the same size hence Karatsuba multiplication is used. Meanwhile, whenever the value of moves to be larger than , the re- duction in Algorithm 2 will decrease. Long multiplication is used here because the multiplication involves two numbers that have significant different sizes. The attack’s aim is to find the binary structure of : ( ) 0111 2 ,,, ,,,, ii nn pbbb bbb −− =…… where and has size of -bits. This will solve the factorization of and lead to a total break of RSA algorithm. The following method is used to recover the bit of at point- : 1) Suppose that bits of have been determined from to . Let ( ) 0 011 , ,,,0,0,0 i C bbb − =…… and ( ) 1 011 ,,,,1,0, 0 i C bbb − = …… That is, the only difference between the two chosen ciphertexts is the bit at point- . and are the candidates of prime . 2) Assign and as the measured decryption times for and respectively. 3) Assign i.e the timing difference between and . 4) If , then is “large”. This indicates . If , then is “small”. This indicates . The thresholds of “large” and “small” are set by the previous values of . 5) The previous steps are repeated to obtain bits at points until half of the bits have been recovered. After obtaining half of bits of , Coppersmith has extensive methods to recover the whole bits of and consequently factorizes [10]. Value of reveals whether extra reductions of Montgomery multiplication or multiplication (normal versus Karatsuba) predominates during the decryption process at point . 3. AAβ Algorithm The Rabin cryptosystem utilized the square root modulo problem as its cryptographic primitive [11]. The alluring factor in Rabin cryptosystem is it has a very small exponent key, . But the cryptosystem has a decryption failure which is caused by the 4-to-1 mapping during decryption. This trade-off deterred Rabin cryptosystem to be widely used in modern application. In 2013, Ariffin et al. proposed a new cryptosystem which also utilized the same problem but without any decryption failure. The algorithm is workable with lower complexity order compared to DHKE, El-Gammal, RSA and ECC [1]. Algorithms 3-5 show the whole cryptosystem. The decryption algorithm uses multiplication together with a one time modular reduction. This lack of expensive operation makes to be an ideal candidate for future public key cryptosystem. We now analyze the operation given by Algorithm 3. AAβ key generation.
A. H. A. Ghafar, M. R. K. Ariffin Algorithm 4. AAβ encryption. Algorithm 5. AAβ dec ryption. and discuss whether the time calculation of this operation can be exploited. Later, we will enhance the capability of an attacker to obtain which consequently will continue onto the calculation of and assuming that we can distinguish the operational time for all multiplications that occurs within the decryption machine. In the next section, we will show how the attack is launched on the decryption algorithm. 4. Timing Attack on AAβ Algorithm From Section 2, it is obvious that timing attack manipulates the timing difference in exponentiation multiplica- tion with the aim to find first, the bits of private key bit per bit and second, factor (i.e. for a public key cryptosystem which accommodates hard factorization problem as its underlying strength). We have also observed the multiple stages of the decryption algorithm of (Algorithm 5) in Section 3. Despite its intricacy, the algorithm is still faster than RSA. Since this paper only discusses the theoretical analysis of timing attack due to lack of real-world implementation of algorithm, it is reasonable to assume that future implementation of this algorithm will adhere to the vastly used implementation in terms of multiplication and
A. H. A. Ghafar, M. R. K. Ariffin modular exponentiation. Based on this assumption, we now observe the first multiplication in the decryption algorithm which is (2) Since and , the inequality in the size of and will not give us a choice to use Karatsuba reduction in the implementations of . This is because Karatsuba algorithm requires both multiplication elements to be in the same size to make it efficient as stated in Section 2. As for other method, Montgomery multiplication, it is also not practical in this multiplication process because the reduction only works better than long multiplication if there is an exponentiation operation involved. However Equation (2) does not involve exponentiation. In short, to compute efficiently, one only use long multiplication. Next, we increase the advantage for the attacker by assuming that value can be manipulated or collected. This loose assumption is realistic due to misuse implementation or hardware faulty. We also assume that equation (3) is implemented using the same method of RSA SSL implementation. Implementors are lured to the same method because the method can use dynamically Montgomery and Karatsuba multiplication for fast modular exponentiation—depends on the exponents given. If that is the case, we will show that can be obtained by measuring computational time of (3), using the same method by Brumley and Boneh which eventually gives out . The method is as follows: 1) Suppose that bits of p have been determined from to . Let ( ) 0 011 , ,,,0,0,0 i W bbb − =…… and ( ) 1 011 ,,,,1,0, 0 i W bbb − = …… that is, the only difference between the two chosen ciphertexts is the bit at point- . and are the candidates of prime . 2) Assign and as the measured decryption times for and respectively. 3) Assign i.e. the timing difference between and . 4) If , then is “large”. This indicates . If , then is “small”. This indicates . The thresholds of “large” and “small” are set by the previous values of . 5) The previous steps are repeated to obtain bits at points until half of the bits have been recovered. It is clear that is susceptible to timing attack if value of is leaked. Hence further improvement is needed to overcome the attack. Section 5 will show how this kind of attack can be addressed by a method called blinding. 5. AAβ Blinding We begin this section under strong assumption that a timing analysis can be conducted upon prior to compute and an attacker would be able to derive the private key d bit per bit. Hence there is a need to blind the multiplication process of before the modulo reduction of . We called this process as blinding. Based on its name, it is clear that the method uses the same principle with RSA blinding.We will introduce a random number, into decryption algorithm. Instead of deterministic decryption of time, the algorithm will have randomized timing decryption. The randomization will increase the difficulty for the adversary to find out the exact value of the private key, . The alteration occurs within the decryption algorithm (Algorithm 5); starting from Step 1. The procedure is detailed in Algorithm 6. Observe and
A. H. A. Ghafar, M. R. K. Ariffin Algorithm 6. AAβ blinding. This value will be computed in and It is easy to see that ( ) 11 44 12 11 44 ()()(mod ) ( ())(mod)()mod. pp pp WWCrQ CRp CrQ RpCdp ++ ++ +≡⋅⋅ + ⋅ ≡⋅+≡ ⋅ and ( ) 11 44 12 11 44 ()()(mod ) (())(mod )()mod. qq qq WWCrQ CRq CrQ RqCdq ++ ++ +≡⋅⋅ + ⋅ ≡⋅+≡ ⋅ which are exactly following the original steps 5 and 6 in Algorithm 5. By using this blinding method, we change the deterministic characteristic in the decryption algorithm to a probabilistic one. The size of randomized element, r is -bit which makes it infeasible to be determined. We will now simulate an example. Example Let . Along will choose primes, , and . We choose and randomly. We obtain dna The public keys are 1) 2) Let the derivatives of the messages that Busu want to send are 1) 2) Thus, 21486341075284587745963757517831994C= . The blinding starts when 1 2 mod4070567597 1344015274mod4070567597 mod 2175088081mod4070567597 W CrQ WC Rpq ≡ ⋅⋅≡ ≡⋅ ≡ and Along obtains 53888 4 53892 4 (134401527 2175088081)mod5388711486mod53887 (1344015274 2175088081)mod5389124120mod53891 p q x x ≡+ ≡ ≡+ ≡ Further calculation based on Algorithm 5 successfully get back and consequently . 6. Future Works Many aspects of side-channel attacks have not been tested yet on the cryptosystems. Other types of attacks are the differential power analysis attack and the glitching attack because it follows the same methodolgy
A. H. A. Ghafar, M. R. K. Ariffin with the timing attack that has been discussed in this paper. Furthermore, a deeper analysis is required to test the randomness generated in blinding to make sure that the decyrption algorithm will always be a probabilistic process. 7. Conclusion decryption algorithm is susceptible to timing attacks that simulates the Brumley and Boneh attack on SSL. However, a method to randomize the output on can overcome this problem. The blinding process changes the deterministic characteristic in the decryption algorithm to become probabilistic and this makes the data sampling procedure for the attack infeasible. References [1] Ariffin, M.R.K., et al. (2013) A New Efficient Asymmetric Cryptosystem Based on the Square Root Problem. Malay- sian Journal of Mathematical Sciences, 7, 19-37. [2] Kocher, P. (1996) Timing Attacks on Implementations of Difie-Hellman, RSA, DSS, and Other Systems. CRYPTO’96, Santa Barbara, 18-22 August 1996, 104-113. [3] Kaliski, B. (1996) Timing Attacks on Cryptosystems. RSA Laboratories Bulletin, 2. [4] Montgomery, P. (1985) Modular Multiplication with Trial Division. Mathematics of Computation, Mathematics of Computation, 44, 519-521. http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/S0025-5718-1985-0777282-X [5] Buell, D.A. (2005) Montgomery Multiplication. http://cse.sc.edu/buell/csce557/Dlecturenotes/ [6] Schindler, W. (2000) A Timing Attack against RSA with the Chinese Remainder Theorem. Workshop on Cryptogra- phic Hardware and Embedded Systems 2000 (CHES 2000), Worcester, 17-18 August 2000, 109-124. [7] Karatsuba, A. and Ofman, Y. (1963) Multiplication of Many-Digital Numbers by Automatic Computers. Physics-Dok- lady, 7, 595-596. [8] Stamp, M. and Low, R.M. (2004) Applied Cryptanalysis. John Wiley & Sons Inc., Hoboken. [9] Brumley, D. and Boneh, D. (2003) Remote Timing Attacks Are Practical. Proceedings of 12th Conference on USENIX Security Symposium, 4-8 August 2003, Washington DC. [10] Coppersmith, D. (1997) Small Solutions to Polynomial Equations, and Low Exponent RSA Vulnerabilities. Journal of Cryptology, 10, 233-260. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s001459900030 [11] Rabin, M.O. (1979) Digitalized Signatures and Public Key Functions as Intractable as Factorization. MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, MIT/LCS/TR-212.
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