Differential Power Analysis on Countermeasures Using Binary Signed Digit Representations

Side channel attacks are a very serious menace to embedded devices with cryptographic applications. To counteract such attacks many randomization techniques have been proposed. One efficient technique in elliptic curve cryptosystems randomizes addition chains with binary signed digit (BSD) representations of the secret key. However, when such countermeasures have been used alone, most of them have been broken by various simple power analysis attacks. In this paper, we consider combinations which can enhance the security of countermeasures using BSD representations by adding additional countermeasures. First, we propose several ways the improved countermeasures based on BSD representations can be attacked. In an actual statistical power analysis attack, the number of samples plays an important role. Therefore, we estimate the number of samples needed in the proposed attack.