Student project proposal
WHITEBOX ATTACK-RESISTANT IMPLEMENTATIONS OF
THE KEY LOADING MECHANISM
Background
Irdeto is a world leader in content security, and provides comprehensive solutions for digital content
protection in digital TV, IPTV and mobile environments. Irdeto develops software that can resist a whitebox
attack scenario where the attacker has full control over the software application. The obfuscated software
aims to prevent an attacker to extract useful information from an instance of the software application.
Cryptographic algorithms form an important class of software components that are used to protect sensitive
data and/or code. Protecting an implementation of a cryptographic algorithm is difficult because most
commercial applications use standardized algorithms such as DES, AES, RC5, etc. Most of these algorithms
have not been designed to be implemented in a whitebox attack resistant manner.
Irdeto has developed a key loading mechanism allows a fairly broad class of functions for implementations.
The goal of the internship is to find specific functions that support whitebox attack resistant implementations
of the key loading mechanism. This version could be included in an international standard (DVB, ETSI) for
the key loading mechanism.
Goals and task
The research project must result in research and implementation of specific functions of the key loading
mechanism
Cooperation
The work will be done within the Irdeto R&D department in Eindhoven.
Pre-requisites
The expertise required and desired are as follows:
Expertise in C/C++ is required
Background in cryptography is desired
Planning (time frame & supervisor)
Dr. Dmitri Jarnikov will supervise the project.
The student will:
1. study the existing key loading mechanism developed by Irdeto
2. design and implement specific functions of the key loading
3. assist in standardization of the developed solution.
Status (who is doing the project; maybe a pointer to recent info)
We are seeking enthusiastic students interested in working on this project for 6 months. If the student
desires, the work could be used as part of his/her Master’s thesis/project.
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