François-Xavier Standaert

Bio: François-Xavier Standaert is an academic researcher from Université catholique de Louvain. The author has contributed to research in topics: Block cipher & Side channel attack. The author has an hindex of 65, co-authored 355 publications receiving 13469 citations. Previous affiliations of François-Xavier Standaert include Columbia University & Chinese Academy of Sciences.

A Unified Framework for the Analysis of Side-Channel Key Recovery Attacks

Abstract: The fair evaluation and comparison of side-channel attacks and countermeasures has been a long standing open question, limiting further developments in the field. Motivated by this challenge, this work makes a step in this direction and proposes a framework for the analysis of cryptographic implementations that includes a theoretical model and an application methodology. The model is based on commonly accepted hypotheses about side-channels that computations give rise to. It allows quantifying the effect of practically relevant leakage functions with a combination of information theoretic and security metrics, measuring the quality of an implementation and the strength of an adversary, respectively. From a theoretical point of view, we demonstrate formal connections between these metrics and discuss their intuitive meaning. From a practical point of view, the model implies a unified methodology for the analysis of side-channel key recovery attacks. The proposed solution allows getting rid of most of the subjective parameters that were limiting previous specialized and often ad hoc approaches in the evaluation of physically observable devices. It typically determines the extent to which basic (but practically essential) questions such as "How to compare two implementations? " or "How to compare two side-channel adversaries? " can be answered in a sound fashion.

The World is Not Enough: Another Look on Second-Order DPA

Abstract: In a recent work, Mangard et al. showed that under certain assumptions, the (so-called) standard univariate side-channel attacks using a distance-of-means test, correlation analysis and Gaussian templates are essentially equivalent. In this paper, we show that in the context of multivariate attacks against masked implementations, this conclusion does not hold anymore. While a single distinguisher can be used to compare the susceptibility of different unprotected devices to first-order DPA, understanding second-order attacks requires to carefully investigate the information leakages and the adversaries exploiting these leakages, separately. Using a framework put forward by Standaert et al. at Eurocrypt 2009, we provide the first analysis that explores these two topics in the case of a masked implementation exhibiting a Hamming weight leakage model. Our results lead to refined intuitions regarding the efficiency of various practically-relevant distinguishers. Further, we also investigate the case of second- and third-order masking (i.e. using three and four shares to represent one value). This evaluation confirms that higher-order masking only leads to significant security improvements if the secret sharing is combined with a sufficient amount of noise. Eventually, we show that an information theoretic analysis allows determining this necessary noise level, for different masking schemes and target security levels, with high accuracy and smaller data complexity than previous methods.

On the Energy Cost of Communication and Cryptography in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract: Energy is a central concern in the deployment of wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we investigate the energy cost of cryptographic protocols, both from a communication and a computation point of view, based on practical measurements on the MICAz and TelosB sensors. We focus on the cost of two key agreement protocols: Kerberos and the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange with authentication provided by the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDH-ECDSA). We find that, in our context, Kerberos is around one order of magnitude less costly than the ECDH-ECDSA key exchange and confirm that it should be preferred in situations where a trusted third party is available. We also observe that the power dedicated to communications can become a central concern when the nodes need to stay in listen mode, e.g. between the protocol rounds, even when reduced using a low power listening (LPL) protocol. Therefore, listening should be considered when assessing the cost of cryptographic protocols on sensor nodes.

Template attacks in principal subspaces

Abstract: Side-channel attacks are a serious threat to implementations of cryptographic algorithms. Secret information is recovered based on power consumption, electromagnetic emanations or any other form of physical information leakage. Template attacks are probabilistic side-channel attacks, which assume a Gaussian noise model. Using the maximum likelihood principle enables us to reveal (part of) the secret for each set of recordings (i.e., leakage trace). In practice, however, the major concerns are (i) how to select the points of interest of the traces, (ii) how to choose the minimal distance between these points, and (iii) how many points of interest are needed for attacking. So far, only heuristics were provided. In this work, we propose to perform template attacks in the principal subspace of the traces. This new type of attack addresses all practical issues in principled way and automatically. The approach is validated by attacking stream ciphers such as RC4. We also report analysis results of template style attacks against an FPGA implementation of AES Rijndael. Roughly, the template attack we carried out requires five time less encrypted messages than the best reported correlation attack against similar block cipher implementations.

Mutual Information Analysis: a Comprehensive Study

Abstract: Mutual Information Analysis is a generic side-channel distinguisher that has been introduced at CHES 2008. It aims to allow successful attacks requiring minimum assumptions and knowledge of the target device by the adversary. In this paper, we compile recent contributions and applications of MIA in a comprehensive study. From a theoretical point of view, we carefully discuss its statistical properties and relationship with probability density estimation tools. From a practical point of view, we apply MIA in two of the most investigated contexts for side-channel attacks. Namely, we consider first-order attacks against an unprotected implementation of the DES in a full custom IC and second-order attacks against a masked implementation of the DES in an 8-bit microcontroller. These experiments allow to put forward the strengths and weaknesses of this new distinguisher and to compare it with standard power analysis attacks using the correlation coefficient.

I and i

Abstract: There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality. Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Abstract: Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

PRESENT: An Ultra-Lightweight Block Cipher

Abstract: With the establishment of the AES the need for new block ciphers has been greatly diminished; for almost all block cipher applications the AES is an excellent and preferred choice. However, despite recent implementation advances, the AES is not suitable for extremely constrained environments such as RFID tags and sensor networks. In this paper we describe an ultra-lightweight block cipher, present . Both security and hardware efficiency have been equally important during the design of the cipher and at 1570 GE, the hardware requirements for present are competitive with today's leading compact stream ciphers.

[서평]「Applied Cryptography」

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to give a comprehensive introduction to applied cryptography with an engineer or computer scientist in mind. The emphasis is on the knowledge needed to create practical systems which supports integrity, confidentiality, or authenticity. Topics covered includes an introduction to the concepts in cryptography, attacks against cryptographic systems, key use and handling, random bit generation, encryption modes, and message authentication codes. Recommendations on algorithms and further reading is given in the end of the paper. This paper should make the reader able to build, understand and evaluate system descriptions and designs based on the cryptographic components described in the paper.