Konstantinos Spalas

Konstantinos Spalas

Post-Quantum cryptography is about to substitute current cryptographic schemes as being resilient in attacks from quantum computers. McEleiece and Bit Flip Key Encapsulation (BIKE) are two delight representatives based on coding theory where classical structural attacks against these algorithms can be successfully phased out by selecting the appropriate key size. Using low cost equipment, the method of Simple Power Analysis (SPA) is used in this paper to evaluate whether or not there is significant information leakage during the decapsulation phase where the shared secret key is generated. Executing a related experiment it is shown that correlation between electromagnetic emissions and secret values exists. In the aftermath, with only 200 power traces collected, machine learning models can predict secret bits of the shared session key, produced during the decapsulation.

Konstantinos Spalas

The L-Band Digital Aviation Communication System (LDACS) aims to modernize communications between the aircraft and the tower. Besides digitizing this type of communication, the contributors also focus on protecting them against cyberattacks. There are several proposals regarding LDACS security, and a recent one suggests the use of physical unclonable functions (PUFs) for the authentication module. This work demonstrates this PUF-based authentication mechanism along with its potential vulnerabilities. Sophisticated models are able to predict PUFs, and, on the other hand, quantum computers are capable of threatening current cryptography, consisting factors that jeopardize the authentication mechanism giving the ability to perform impersonation attacks. In addition, aging is a characteristic that affects the stability of PUFs, which may cause instability issues, rendering the system unavailable. In this context, this work proposes the well-established Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), as an alternative solution.