16 May 2018 Eurosmart confirms that the security of products and services is not impacted by the recent publication on SCP02

Eurosmart has noted the publication from Gildas Avoine (Rennes University, INSA Rennes) and Loïc Ferreira (Orange Labs) on the potential Vulnerability on the SCP02 protocol that has been published yesterday on the TCES Website.

This new publication reports a known attack but applied in a new context.

For a long time, Eurosmart has been recommending that additional security measures be added to SCP02, such as, e.g., pre-encrypting sensitive data, or restricting the usage to trusted environments, or other means that are appropriate to enhance the security of SCP02.

Please find here below a Q&A developing more in detail the questions that you may have as Eurosmart technology end-user.

Eurosmart is committed in developing, promoting and maintaining the appropriate security level for its products, solutions and protocols.

Q1: What can we do from this attack? What we cannot do?

What is retrieved is the said plaintext (not the key) and from only one card.

A pre-encrypted data cannot be retrieved in clear.

Q2: What are the conditions to perform this attack?

The conditions for performing the attack on SCP02 are as follows:

· Attacker must be able to intercept and modify messages between server and card in open environment;

· Attacker must be able to perform precise timing measurement (wrong padding or good padding) with access either to the device or ability to load spy malware;

· The same plain text must be sent enciphered several (around 128 times to disclose one single byte of information) times (either to different cards with different keys or to the same card with different session keys).

Q3: What are the type of product applicable/not applicable to this attack?

Attack is not applicable to the electrical personalization of banking applets (all sensitive data are over encrypted).

Attack is not applicable if personalization is done in a secure place (personalization place is usually certified by schemes or performed in trusted environments).

Attack is not applicable if personalization done by OTA through SCP80/SCP81 secure channel.

Attack is not applicable over data that are encrypted using the Data Encryption Key (DEK).

Q4: What are the recommendations to be applied?

For ongoing programs using SCP02, the GlobalPlatform Security Task Force recommends the following simple rules:

· Use ICV encryption recommendation from GPC_FAQ_021;

· Encrypt all sensitive data transmitted in SCP02 using the Data Encryption Key (DEK) or any applet key;

· Disable SCP02 if there is no need to update the card in the field;

· Add SCP03 in the card platform to be able to smoothly switch to AES crypto.

Restricting the use of SCP02 to trusted environment can also be considered as a valid alternative.

 As a reminder, the SCP02 Global Statement is the following:

GlobalPlatform has issued in March 2018 a security informative note about the evolution of the trends related to the Secure Channel Protocol 02 (a.k.a. SCP02) specified in the Card Specification document.

GlobalPlatform organization set as deprecated this protocol in the current version of GlobalPlatform specification (Card Specification v2.3.1).

Refer to the GlobalPlatform recommendations as described in the informative note