System and method for generating and protecting cryptographic keys

Abstract

In the present disclosure, implementations of Diffie-Hellman key agreement are provided that, when embodied in software, resist extraction of cryptographically sensitive parameters during software execution by white-box attackers. Four embodiments are taught that make extraction of sensitive parameters difficult during the generation of the public key and the computation of the shared secret. The embodiments utilize transformed random numbers in the derivation of the public key and shared secret. The traditional attack model for Diffie-Hellman implementations considers only black-box attacks, where attackers analyze only the inputs and outputs of the implementation. In contrast, white-box attacks describe a much more powerful type of attacker who has total visibility into the software implementation as it is being executed.