{"title":"Software smart cards via cryptographic camouflage","authors":"D. N. Hoover, B. N. Kausik","doi":"10.1109/SECPRI.1999.766915","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"A sensitive point in public key cryptography is how to protect the private key. We outline a method of protecting private keys using cryptographic camouflage. Specifically, we do not encrypt the private key with a password that is too long for exhaustive attack. Instead, we encrypt it so that only one password will decrypt it correctly, but many passwords will decrypt it to produce a key that looks valid enough to fool an attacker. For certain applications, this method protects a private key against dictionary attack, as a smart card does, but entirely in software.","PeriodicalId":204019,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Cat. No.99CB36344)","volume":"2 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"1999-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"47","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Cat. No.99CB36344)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1109/SECPRI.1999.766915","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 47
Abstract
A sensitive point in public key cryptography is how to protect the private key. We outline a method of protecting private keys using cryptographic camouflage. Specifically, we do not encrypt the private key with a password that is too long for exhaustive attack. Instead, we encrypt it so that only one password will decrypt it correctly, but many passwords will decrypt it to produce a key that looks valid enough to fool an attacker. For certain applications, this method protects a private key against dictionary attack, as a smart card does, but entirely in software.