Comodo Cryptography Expert To Deliver Speech At Workshop On Cryptographic Hardware & Embedded Systems

Jersey City, NJ, August 06, 2008 - Comodo, a global leader in Identity and Trust Assurance Management solutions, is pleased to announce that Dr Colin Walter, Head of Cryptography at Comodo's Digital Trust Research Lab, will be presenting at the upcoming Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware & Embedded Systems 2008 in Washington, DC from August 10 to 13 (http://www.chesworkshop.org). Dr Walter's speech, Recovering Secret Keys from Weak Side Channel Traces of Differing Lengths, focuses on the combined effect of standard software countermeasures in order to assess the minimum requirements for hardware countermeasures which lead to cryptographic key security.

In the field of cryptography, side channel attacks are the exploitation of weaknesses in physical devices used to deploy cryptographic systems allowing the attacker to decrypt sensitive data, such as private keys. For example, minute variations in timing, power, and electro-magnetic radiation can be used to reconstruct the secret keys used by a smartcard or cryptographic token when performing authentication.

In his paper, Dr. Walter studies combined effect of several software countermeasures in order to assess the minimum requirements for the hardware. This leads to security for the secret key.

Dr. Colin Walter is the Head of Cryptography at Comodo CA and Chairman of Peripherals Working Group - Trusted Computing Group and a member of the Steering Committee for Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems. He has achieved international recognition in the design of hardware and algorithms for the implementation of RSA cryptography. A senior member of the IEEE, Colin is most well-known to the international community for his long term research into Montgomery modular multiplication. A selection of his papers are available on the Comodo website at http://www.comodo.com/research/crypto/publications.html.

Full conference details and an itinerary can be found http://www.chesworkshop.org.

About Comodo

The Comodo companies provide the infrastructure that is essential in enabling e-merchants, other Internet-connected companies, software companies, and individual consumers to interact and conduct business via the Internet safely and securely. The Comodo companies offer PKI SSL, Code Signing, Content Verification and E-Mail Certificates; award winning PC security software;  vulnerability scanning services for PCI Compliance; secure e-mail and fax services.   

Continual innovation, a core competence in PKI, and a commitment to reversing the growth of Internet-crime distinguish the Comodo companies as vital players in the Internet's ongoing development. Comodo secures and authenticates online transactions and communications for over 200,000 business customers and 3,000,000 users of our desktop security products. 

For additional information on Comodo - Creating Trust Online™ visit http://www.comodo.com

Dr. Colin Walter - Profile

Dr. Walter has a formidable international reputation in the design of hardware and algorithms for the implementation of RSA cryptography. He is on the program committee of several international conferences (e.g. CHES and ARITH) and has spoken as keynote speaker on many occasions.

Dr. Walter obtained his doctorate in algebraic number theory from Cambridge University and he is a senior member of the IEEE. Colin joined Comodo from UMIST and is responsible for the on-going research and development work of the cryptography team which designs, tests and verifies all the crypto-systems underlying the many and varied security products developed by Comodo. Colin is most well-known to the international community for his invention of the first ever purely locally connected systolic array for modular multiplication. This enables servers to perform the calculations for very large numbers of SSL key exchanges at once. Recent research has led to the MIST algorithm, a key ingredient in the secure implementation of electronic purses on smartcards.