Survey of Cryptographic Smart CardCapabilities and Vulnerabilitiesby Ronald WardSecure Telecommunications, ECE 636May 5, 2001iiTable of Contents1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 12. Smart Card Interface and Readers.................................................................................................... 13. Smart Card Applications ................................................................................................................. 23.1. General Applications .................................................................................................................. 23.2. Multiple Application Smart Cards............................................................................................... 33.3. Future Applications .................................................................................................................... 44. Smart Card Markets ........................................................................................................................ 55. Smart Card Vendors........................................................................................................................ 66. Smart Card Reliability..................................................................................................................... 77. Smart Card Cryptographic Co-Processors........................................................................................ 87.1. Manufactures of Cryptographic Co-Processors............................................................................ 87.2. Comparison of Cryptographic Co-Processors .............................................................................. 97.3. RSA, DSA and ECC................................................................................................................. 128. Smart Card Security Attacks.......................................................................................................... 138.1. Non-invasive Attacks................................................................................................................ 138.2. Invasive Attacks ....................................................................................................................... 148.3. Smart Cards and Trust Splits..................................................................................................... 169. Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 1710. References .................................................................................................................................... 19Table of Figures and TablesFigure 1: ISO 7816-2 Smart Card Physical Interface ................................................................................. 2Figure 2: Millions of Smart Card Shipments per Market Sector in 1999 [ES99a]....................................... 5Figure 3: Geographic Distribution of Smart Card Shipments [ES99b]........................................................ 6Table 1: Smart Card Vendors.................................................................................................................... 6Figure 4: Percentage of cards returned over time....................................................................................... 8Figure 5: Comparison of Characteristics of Crypto Co-Processors 1996 vs 1998........................................ 9Figure 6: Time of Cryptographic Operations in Siemens Chips 1996 vs 1998.......................................... 10Figure 7: Time of Cryptographic Operations in Philips Chips 1996 vs 1998 ............................................ 10Figure 8: Time of Cryptographic Operations in Thomson's Chips 1996 vs 1998....................................... 11Figure 9: Average Time of Cryptographic Operations 1996 vs 1998........................................................ 11Table 2: Projections for Cryptographic Co-Processors Available in 2000................................................. 12Figure 10: Shamir's Countermeasure for Power Analysis [Sh00] ............................................................. 14Figure 11: Hot fuming nitric acid dissolves the package [KK99] ............................................................. 15Figure 12: The chip is glued to a test package using a manual bonding machine [KK99]......................... 15Figure 13: Smart card processor ready for microprobing experiments. [KA96] ....................................... 1511. IntroductionIn "The dawn of time " (La nuit des temps) the science fiction writer René Barjavelwrote about the Gondas- a civilization thousands of years old, but highly advanced,-usinga magic ring endowed with the power of memorization and telecommunication. "Everytime a Gonda wanted something new, some clothes, a trip, some objects, he would paywith his key. He would bend his middle finger, would enter his key and his account at thecentral computer would immediately be reduced by the value of the merchandise or therequested service." [Ugo01]Smart cards made their debut in the 1970s. They are practically ubiquitous in certainparts of the world now, and the concept of embedding computer chips in other portabledevices has really caught on in the last decade. Sun Microsystems, for instance,advertises iButton, which can be used for data storage, encryption and temperaturemeasurements. It can be mounted on almost anything including a “magic” ring asconceptualized by Barjavel. Over the last few decades the demand for smart cards andsimilar devices has steadily increased. The demand has mostly come from largeorganizations such as mobile telephone companies, national administrations andinsurance companies. More recently, demand for smart cards and their innovativecapabilities has come from the growing e-commerce and home-networking industries.The capabilities and processing speeds of smart cards have also increased to meet thedemand.A recent article in Scientific American reported that cryptographic smart cards rangein price from less than $1 to about $20 [Fa96]. Another source indicates that acryptographic smart card generally costs $12 to $15 [Kin99]. By comparison, a typicalmagnetic stripe card costs 10 to 50 cents. A smart card reader generally costs $500[Kin99].A typical