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Method for Securing Electronic Device Data Processing

a technology of electronic devices and data processing, applied in the field of electronic devices, can solve the problems of insufficient protection of confidential data processed therein by attacks using conventional algorithms such as dynamic memory management (dmm)

Inactive Publication Date: 2011-12-15
GEMPLU
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

All of these applications require sensitive and confidential data to be processed within the smart card.
Indeed, in many instances, the sensitive and / or confidential information contained or processed in the device is of significant value (financial or otherwise) to its owner.
Conventional algorithms used for allocating memory in device 10, such as Dynamic Memory Management (DMM), are not sufficient to properly protect against attacks the confidential data processed therein.

Method used

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  • Method for Securing Electronic Device Data Processing
  • Method for Securing Electronic Device Data Processing
  • Method for Securing Electronic Device Data Processing

Examples

Experimental program
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first embodiment

[0035]the method of the present invention will now be described with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4.

[0036]As it can be seen from FIG. 3, the first embodiment of the method of the present invention involves a dedicated area in a volatile memory 22 having a length (2k) that is larger than the length (k) of the confidential data 24 to be stored therein. It is to be noted that since the confidential data 24 is usually of a predetermined and known length, the length of the dedicated area 22 may also be predetermined. In the illustrative example of FIG. 3, the length of the dedicated area 22 has been selected as being twice the length of the confidential data 24.

[0037]As can be seen from FIG. 3, the confidential data 24 is not necessarily stored at the beginning of the dedicated area 22, but starts at a random memory location within the dedicated area 22 that is determined by an offset value 26.

[0038]Thereby, during the confidential data processing, the address where the confidential data is ...

second embodiment

[0048]the method of the present invention will now be described with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6.

[0049]The main distinction between the first and second embodiment resides in the approach used to store the confidential data in the dedicated area. In this case, the dedicated area 100 has the same length as the confidential data 102 to be stored therein.

[0050]Indeed, it has been found that instead of providing a dedicated area larger than the data to be stored therein, it is possible to provide a dedicated area having the same length and to loop the confidential data 102 when the end of the dedicated area 100 is reached. This way, it is possible to provide the improved security of the present invention while optimizing the use of the limited amount of volatile memory typically provided in electronic devices (e.g. smart cards).

[0051]More specifically, as shown in FIG. 5, and for illustration purposes, each bit of the confidential data 102 has been illustrated separately with its positio...

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Abstract

A method for securing electronic device processes against attacks (e.g. side channel attacks) during the processing of sensitive and / or confidential data by a Central Processing Unit (CPU) to the volatile memory (e.g. RAM) of an electronic device such as, for example, a smart card, a PDA or a cellular phone is described herein. The method involves the storage of the confidential data to a dynamically and randomly assigned memory location, thereby rendering more difficult the analysis and subsequently the attacks (e.g. side channel attacks).

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation application of application Ser. No. 10 / 416,754, filed Oct. 20, 2003, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,006,058, issued Aug. 23, 2011.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to electronic devices. More specifically, the present invention is concerned with a method for securing the internal process of electronic devices.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Smart cards, as a particular embodiment of electronic devices, were initially conceived to enhance the security of distributed systems. Applications of smart cards include, for example, calling cards, identification cards, medical cards, transaction cards (credit / debit bank, store, restaurant, etc.) and security cards. All of these applications require sensitive and confidential data to be processed within the smart card.[0004]As can be seen from FIG. 1, which is labelled as “Prior Art”, an electronic device 10 conventionally includes a Central Processin...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): G06F12/14G06F21/77G07F7/10G06F21/78
CPCG06F21/558G06F21/62G06F21/77G07F7/1008G06Q20/341G07F7/082G06Q20/105G06F21/755
Inventor BENOIT, OLIVIER
Owner GEMPLU