SCARE | Side-Channel Aware Engineering

Summary
"As the recent ""HeartBleed"" bug in OpenSSL demonstrates, the security of cryptographic software and devices cannot be understated. They build the foundation for basic security guarantees such as confidentiality and authentication, enabling technologies such as secure communication. For example, Transport Layer Security enables e-commerce, a 1.9 trillion USD global industry in 2016.

The more modern trend, especially in the embedded space, is towards hardware-assisted security. Here the aim is to leverage hardware to accomplish security goals that are simply unrealistic in software-only solutions. One example is Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) that provide a secure sandbox to execute security-critical software. TEEs, often driven by ARM TrustZone Technology, are present in the majority of smartphones on the market today.

Side-channel analysis (SCA) is a cryptanalytic technique that targets not the formal description of a cryptographic primitive but the implementation of it. Examples of side-channels include power consumption, electro-magnetic radiation, acoustic emanations, and various timings. Attackers then use this auxiliary signal to recover critical algorithm state and, in combination with cryptanalytic techniques, secret key material. This is a young but very active field within security and cryptography stemming from covert channels.

SCA is the focus of SCARE. Objectives include the discovery of next generation covert channels, paving the way for novel SCA classes, and extending these to full-fledged end-to-end SCA attacks by identifying specific vulnerabilities in widely-deployed cryptography software libraries such as OpenSSL and hardware-assisted security technologies such as TEEs. In turn, SCARE will deliver a methodology for SCA security assurance: not just development, evaluation, and deployment of acute countermeasures, but bringing SCA into the product life cycle as part of continuous integration."
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/804476
Start date: 01-12-2018
End date: 30-11-2023
Total budget - Public funding: 1 499 950,00 Euro - 1 499 950,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

"As the recent ""HeartBleed"" bug in OpenSSL demonstrates, the security of cryptographic software and devices cannot be understated. They build the foundation for basic security guarantees such as confidentiality and authentication, enabling technologies such as secure communication. For example, Transport Layer Security enables e-commerce, a 1.9 trillion USD global industry in 2016.

The more modern trend, especially in the embedded space, is towards hardware-assisted security. Here the aim is to leverage hardware to accomplish security goals that are simply unrealistic in software-only solutions. One example is Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) that provide a secure sandbox to execute security-critical software. TEEs, often driven by ARM TrustZone Technology, are present in the majority of smartphones on the market today.

Side-channel analysis (SCA) is a cryptanalytic technique that targets not the formal description of a cryptographic primitive but the implementation of it. Examples of side-channels include power consumption, electro-magnetic radiation, acoustic emanations, and various timings. Attackers then use this auxiliary signal to recover critical algorithm state and, in combination with cryptanalytic techniques, secret key material. This is a young but very active field within security and cryptography stemming from covert channels.

SCA is the focus of SCARE. Objectives include the discovery of next generation covert channels, paving the way for novel SCA classes, and extending these to full-fledged end-to-end SCA attacks by identifying specific vulnerabilities in widely-deployed cryptography software libraries such as OpenSSL and hardware-assisted security technologies such as TEEs. In turn, SCARE will deliver a methodology for SCA security assurance: not just development, evaluation, and deployment of acute countermeasures, but bringing SCA into the product life cycle as part of continuous integration."

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

ERC-2018-STG

Update Date

27-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
ERC-2018
ERC-2018-STG