An Introduction to Enhance the Security of Cryptographic Algorithms against Side Channel Attacks Using the Threshold Implementation Approach

In order to establish the information security, we need to implement a cryptography algorithm in the software or hardware. In 1996, Kocher presented the Side Channel Attacks (SCA) on the cryptography systems in which the leakage of some important information was used. Power analysis is one of these attacks. In order to prevent this kind of attacks, the designers and implementers presented some countermeasures such as hiding and masking. Afterwards, attackers showed that these countermeasures, especially masking, could not reach the security goals in the presence of Glitch. To resolve this challenge Nikova et al. presented the threshold implementation method in 2006. They used three subjects, threshold cryptography, hidden share, and multi-party computation in their new countermeasure. In fact, the threshold implementation is a kind of masking with some extra features to establish the information security in the presence of Glitch. In the recent years, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has started some activities in the field threshold implementation. Standardization in this field is the main goal of NIST. In this paper we introduce the threshold implantation method as a countermeasure against side channel attacks and review its challenges and advantages comparing the previous countermeasures.