Tamper resistance: a cautionary note

  • Authors:
  • Ross Anderson;Markus Kuhn

  • Affiliations:
  • Cambridge University, Computer Laboratory, Cambridge, England;COAST Laboratory, Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

  • Venue:
  • WOEC'96 Proceedings of the 2nd conference on Proceedings of the Second USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce - Volume 2
  • Year:
  • 1996

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Abstract

An increasing number of systems from pay-TV to electronic purses, rely on the tamper resistance of smartcards and other security processors. We describe a number of attacks on such systems -- some old, some new and some that are simply little known outside the chip testing community. We conclude that trusting tamper resistance is problematic; smartcards are broken routinely, and even a device that was described by a government signals agency as 'the most secure processor generally available' turns out to be vulnerable. Designers of secure systems should consider the consequences with care.