Fault Attacks at the System Level - The Challenge of Securing Application Software

Abstract

Summary form only given. During the last two decades, fault attacks on cryptographic algorithms have received significantly more attention in the academic community than fault attacks on application software. However, fault attacks on application software pose a serious threat in practice. Faults can for example be induced to bypass cryptographic functions or to obtain root access to a device. Such faults can be induced by physical means or as the recent publication of the Rowhammer attack has shown, faults can even be induced remotely. This talk provides an overview of attack techniques as well as of countermeasures to secure not only cryptography, but entire systems, against fault attacks.