Cryptography Research Sponsors e-Smart Conference and Demos 2004

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — September 21, 2004 — Reaffirming its support of the smart card industry, Cryptography Research, Inc. today announced its sponsorship of the e-Smart Conference and Demos 2004 on September 22-24 in Sophia Antipolis, France. Cryptography Research is best known in the smart card industry for its discovery of Differential Power Analysis (DPA), the patented countermeasures it developed to prevent DPA attacks, and its continuing efforts to help the smart card industry improve the security of its products.

“The e-Smart Conference is an important event for major smart card manufacturers and vendors, and Cryptography Research is proud to sponsor this gathering,” said Kit Rodgers, director of licensing at Cryptography Research. “We are committed to helping companies in the smart card industry better understand the issues DPA presents and to providing practical solutions for securing their products.”

DPA was discovered at Cryptography Research by Paul Kocher, Joshua Jaffe and Benjamin Jun, who demonstrated that power consumption measurements of smart cards and other devices could be analyzed to find secret keys. Vulnerable devices could be exploited by attackers to counterfeit digital cash, duplicate ID cards, pirate digital content, tamper with elections, and mount other attacks. DPA remains a major area of focus for researchers, security experts and product engineering teams in chip manufacturing and smart card industries.

Cryptography Research offers technology licensing, services, and evaluation hardware to help companies safeguard their products against DPA attacks. The firm has been awarded a portfolio of fundamental patents which provide the basis for implementing effective DPA countermeasures in smart cards and other devices. A license from Cryptography Research is required to make, use or sell DPA resistant devices.

The e-Smart Conference and Demos 2004 is organized by smart card industry associations Eurosmart and GlobalPlatform together with the Java Card Forum. The fifth annual gathering will include 300 high-level security professionals and decision makers, hosting sessions for strategy, technology, management and market issues facing the smart card industry.