SPA resistant Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem using Addition Chains

Abstract

There has been a lot of interest in recent years in the problems faced by cryptosystems due to side channel attacks. Algorithms for elliptic curve point scalar multiplication such as the double and add method are prone to such attacks. By making use of special addition chains, it is possible to implement a simple power analysis (SPA) resistant cryptosystem. In this paper a reconfigurable architecture for a cryptographic processor is presented. A SPA resistant algorithm for point multiplication is implemented and is shown to be faster than the double-and-add method. Post place and route results for the processor are given