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From: Kevin <kevinsisco61784@gmail.com>
To: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] New side channel attack that can recover Bitcoin keys
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 11:21:52 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <53174F20.10207@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANEZrP25N7W_MeZin_pyVQP5pC8bt5yqJzTXt_tN1P6kWb5i2w@mail.gmail.com>

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On 3/5/2014 7:49 AM, Mike Hearn wrote:
> A new practical technique has been published that can recover 
> secp256k1 private keys after observing OpenSSL calculate as little as 
> 200 signatures:
>
> http://eprint.iacr.org/2014/161.pdf
>
> This attack is based on the FLUSH+RELOAD technique published last 
> year. It works by observing L3 CPU cache timings and forcing cache 
> line flushes using the clflush opcode. As a result, it is applicable 
> to any x86 environment where an attacker may be able to run on the 
> same hardware i.e. virtualised hosting environments where keys are 
> being reused.
>
> I am not currently aware of any efforts to make OpenSSL's secp256k1 
> implementation completely side channel free in all aspects. Also, 
> unfortunately many people have reimplemented ECDSA themselves and even 
> if OpenSSL gets fixed, the custom implementations probably won't.
>
> So, IMHO this is a sign for hot wallet users to start walking (but not 
> running) towards the exits of these shared cloud services:  it doesn't 
> feel safe to sign transactions on these platforms, so hot wallets 
> should be managed by dedicated hardware. Of course other parts of the 
> service, like the website, are less sensitive and can still run in the 
> cloud. I doubt the researchers will release their code to do the side 
> channel attack and it's rather complex to reimplement, so this gives 
> some time for mitigation. Unfortunately the huge sums being held in 
> some "bitbank" style hot wallets mean that attackers are well 
> motivated to pull off even quite complex attacks.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=122218951&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
How can we patch this issue?


-- 
Kevin


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  parent reply	other threads:[~2014-03-05 16:22 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 24+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2014-03-05 12:49 [Bitcoin-development] New side channel attack that can recover Bitcoin keys Mike Hearn
2014-03-05 12:56 ` Pieter Wuille
2014-03-05 13:18   ` Jean-Paul Kogelman
2014-03-05 14:04     ` Pieter Wuille
2014-03-05 16:21 ` Kevin [this message]
2014-03-05 19:39   ` Peter Todd
2014-03-05 19:51     ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-03-05 20:32       ` Peter Todd
2014-03-05 20:54         ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-03-12  9:44           ` Peter Todd
2014-03-05 22:17     ` James Hartig
2014-03-05 22:26       ` Eric Lombrozo
2014-03-06  7:02     ` Odinn Cyberguerrilla
2014-03-08 19:34   ` Luke-Jr
2014-03-09  1:57     ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-03-05 21:31 ` Eric Lombrozo
2014-03-05 21:44   ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-03-05 22:14     ` Eric Lombrozo
2014-03-05 22:25       ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-03-06  8:38         ` Mike Hearn
2014-03-06 10:00           ` Natanael
2014-03-25 13:39             ` Troy Benjegerdes
2014-03-25 13:50               ` Gavin Andresen
2014-03-08 19:29           ` Gustav Simonsson

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