Comodo Cryptography Expert to Present Latest Smart Card Research

Comodo, a global Certification Authority and leader in Identity and Trust Assurance Management solutions, today announced that Dr Colin Walter, Head of Cryptography at Comodo's Digital Trust Research Lab, will present his latest findings at the 8th International Workshop on Information Security Applications (WISA 2007), 27-29 August at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, Jeju Island, Korea (www.wisa.or.kr/).

Dr Walter's presentation, Longer Randomly Blinded RSA Keys may be Weaker than Shorter Ones, focuses on the limits of certain counter measures to side channel attacks. The presentation

emphasizes the need for more analysis and standards agreements to the counter-measures before relying on security systems when designing hardware for containing secret cryptographic keys. In the field of cryptography, Side Channel Attacks relate to weaknesses in the physical devices (such as smart cards) used to deploy a cryptographic system. These weaknesses can sometimes be exploited by an attacker to extract secret keys, enabling the devices to be cloned. For example, minute variations in timing, power and electro-magnetic radiation can be used to reconstruct the private keys used by a cryptographic token when performing authentication. A number of randomizing counter-measures are typically employed to decouple the side channel leakage from the keys and data being processed.

Dr. Colin Walter is the Head of Cryptography at Comodo, a former chairman of the Peripherals Working Group in the Trusted Computing Group and a steering committee member of the IACR Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems workshops. He has a formidable international reputation in the design of hardware and algorithms for the implementation of RSA cryptography. A senior member of the IEEE, Colin is most well-known to the international community for his long term research into Montgomery modular multiplication and side channel leakage from smart cards.

A selection of his papers is available at the Comodo website: www.comodo.com/research/crypto/publications.html. Full conference details and itinerary can be found at the WISA website - http://www.wisa.or.kr/.