Author: Kevin 2014-03-05 16:21:52
Published on: 2014-03-05T16:21:52+00:00
On 3/5/2014, Mike Hearn wrote to the Bitcoin-development mailing list about a published technique that can recover secp256k1 private keys after observing OpenSSL calculate as little as 200 signatures. The attack is based on the FLUSH+RELOAD technique, published last year, and exploits L3 CPU cache timings by forcing cache line flushes using the clflush opcode. It is applicable to any x86 environment where an attacker may be able to run on the same hardware i.e. virtualised hosting environments where keys are being reused. Hearn advises hot wallet users to start walking towards the exits of these shared cloud services and manage their wallets with dedicated hardware. However, other parts of the service, like the website, can still run in the cloud.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T04:00:16.508759+00:00