Obfuscating cryptographic material in memory
US11604740B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Dec 1, 2020 |
| Grant date | Mar 14, 2023 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 21, 2041 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L2209/16
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Methods and systems disclosed herein describe obfuscating plaintext cryptographic material stored in memory. A random location in an obfuscation buffer may be selected for each byte of the plaintext cryptographic material. The location of each byte of the plaintext cryptographic material may be stored in a position tracking buffer. To recover the scrambled plaintext cryptographic material, the location of each byte of the plaintext cryptographic material may be read from the position tracking buffer. Each byte of the plaintext cryptographic material may then be read from the obfuscation buffer and written to a temporary buffer. When each byte of the plaintext cryptographic material is recovered, the plaintext cryptographic material may be used to perform one or more cryptographic operations. The scrambling techniques described herein reduce the likelihood of a malicious user recovering plaintext cryptographic material while stored in memory.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.