Researchers claim better security chip cards with smart algorithms

Scientists from research institute CTIT, part of the University of Twente, have developed algorithms together with researchers from KU Leuven that should make it more difficult to obtain secret keys for chip cards.

UT PhD student Begül Bilgin, together with Svetla Nikova of KU Leuven, has developed algorithms to close information leaks on chip cards. In doing so, they focused on two ways in which hackers work to obtain secret keys on a chip card: by closely studying the power consumption of the chip during certain activities and the time required for this. An attacker can use this information to determine what a chip is doing.

According to the scientists, the algorithms use multi-party computation. In doing so, encryption operations are split, so that a single part does not give direct access to the key. The algorithms also ensure that all partial operations are never active at the same time. As a result, the power consumption of the chip may still be related to the operations that the microprocessor is performing, but no longer to the secret key that must protect the information.

According to the researchers, the algorithms can be used in new chip cards, but they can also be used in software. This would make obtaining, for example, encryption keys more difficult, reducing the chance that, for example, cracked chip cards have to be replaced. This happened, for example, with the OV chip card, which contained a so-called Mifare Classic chip and which was easy to crack.