We live in an increasingly encrypted society where public-key encryption and digital signatures protect so much, from financial transactions and power-grid equipment to medical devices and other systems.
While much work is done to continue to strengthen these protections, the powerful advancements that might help with those efforts, such as quantum computing, also empower those seeking to evade them.
Future quantum computers could break the mathematical foundations of many widely used public-key systems, researchers are finding, and that looming reality has spurred the standardization of new post-quantum cryptographic algorithms to further protect these assets.
But even that step now is not enough.
“We protect important information using secret codes,” said Florida Tech assistant professor Abdullah Aydeger, whose research includes post-quantum security, “but a code can be perfect on paper and still give itself away in practice.”
When one of these new quantum-resistant codes runs on a small, inexpensive computer chip often used in smart meters, industrial sensors, medical monitors and other connected devices, the chip leaks tiny clues while it works, Aydeger said: slight changes in how much power it uses and faint electromagnetic signals.
So someone with a sensor placed nearby can measure this “physical side-channel leakage” and recover the secret key without breaking the underlying math or even physically accessing the device.
Supported by a new, two-year, $200,000 grant Aydeger won from the National Science Foundation, he is working to combat this nefarious activity.
His project, “Physical Layer Side Channel Assessment and Lightweight Countermeasures for Embedded Post Quantum Cryptography,” will do two things, he said: first, it will measure how much these new post-quantum cryptographic algorithms leak on small chips, creating a helpful baseline measurement for the first time.
And then it calls for Aydeger and his team to design and evaluate countermeasures that scramble the timing and order of operations, so the leaked clues become much harder to use. But adding a degree of difficulty is the setting: any fixes must fit within the constraints of these already packed chips.
“They have very little spare memory, power or speed,” Aydeger said.
The project, both Aydeger and the NSF note, will offer powerful opportunities for students.
“The project will also train students in hardware security, embedded cryptography, and side-channel evaluation, strengthening the workforce needed for the nation’s transition to quantum-resistant technologies,” NSF wrote on the award page for the grant.
Earlier this year, Aydeger received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award for his project centered on post-quantum security in 6G infrastructure.
