Abstract. The elliptic curve Curve25519 has been presented as protected against state-of-the-art timing-attacks [2]. This paper shows that a timing attack is still achievable against a particular X25519 implementation which follows the RFC 4 7748 requirements [10]. The attack allows the retrieval of the complete private key used in the ECDH protocol. This is achieved due to timing leakage during Montgomery ladder execution and relies on a conditional branch in the Windows runtime library 2015. The attack can be applied remotely.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.