Investigating CRYSTALS-Kyber Vulnerabilities: Attack Analysis and Mitigation

Abstract

Significant advancements have been achieved in the field of quantum computing in recent years. If somebody ever creates a sufficiently strong quantum computer, many of the public-key cryptosystems in use today might be compromised. Kyber is a post-quantum encryption technique that depends on lattice problem hardness, and it was recently standardized. Despite extensive testing by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), new investigations have demonstrated the effectiveness of CRYSTALS-Kyber attacks and their applicability in non-controlled environments. We investigated CRYSTALS-Kyber’s susceptibility to side-channel attacks. In the reference implementation of Kyber512, additional functions can be compromised by employing the selected ciphertext. The implementation of the selected ciphertext allows the attacks to succeed. Real-time recovery of the entire secret key is possible for all assaults.