Petr Svenda

The security analysis of cryptographic implementations is vital for building secure systems atop core hardware components. Yet, it is also frequently more challenging to assess due to the general closeness of the hardware industry. The resulting black box analysis is typically more complicated to set up, execute, and interpret the observed results. If analyzing only a single device, the likelihood of ending empty-handed is high -- the situation not favorable for academic researchers, further decreasing the pool of people motivated to perform independent security analysis. The talk will present lessons learned from large-scale analysis of cryptographic smartcards, Trusted Platform Modules, cryptographic libraries, and cryptocurrency hardware wallets performed over the past decade, which resulted in several high-profile, responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities against RSA and ECC implementations. Such an analysis approach increases the likelihood of a successful attack being found and provides realistic inputs for designing new attack methods. Additionally, the results obtained from all devices can be used to reason about the situation and weaknesses of the whole ecosystem instead of just reporting a single vulnerable device.