Gustavo Banegas

Gustavo Banegas

Cryptography Researcher

On Recovering Block Cipher Secret Keys in the Cold Boot Attack Setting

Published in Preprint / Working Paper, 2022

This paper presents a general strategy to recover a block cipher secret key in the cold boot attack setting.

We propose a key-recovery method combining classical key enumeration algorithms with Grover’s quantum algorithm to reconstruct the key from noisy RAM snapshots. The method is demonstrated for AES, PRESENT, GIFT, LowMC, and the post-quantum signature scheme Picnic.

Key contributions:

  • Supports up to 40% noise in key recovery.
  • Shows quantum feasibility for all Picnic parameter sets.
  • Provides resource and runtime analysis of the hybrid algorithm.

The approach helps evaluate the post-quantum security of schemes like Picnic against physical attacks.

Recommended citation: Gustavo Banegas, Ricardo Villanueva-Polanco. (2022). "On Recovering Block Cipher Secret Keys in the Cold Boot Attack Setting." Preprint, available on arXiv.
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