Fast Firmware Implementation of RSA-Like Security Protocol for Mobile Devices

In modern mobile communications, personal privacy and security are of top concern to mobile phone subscribers. Yet, owing to the limit of their processing capability, mainstream mobile manufacturers are still unable to apply advanced security protocol to mobile devices. It should be noted that many security protocols are based on RSA algorithm. To implement RSA algorithm and thus apply many advanced security protocols to mobile networks, this paper proposes an efficient and practical method based on the Texas Instruments TMS320C55x family. When the proposed method is employed, it takes only 7.9 milliseconds to perform a 1024-bit RSA encryption operation at the clock frequency of 200 MHz. Our decryption operation is at least 3.5 times faster than the time taken to perform the same operation without employing the proposed method. In addition, the proposed method can stop any power-analysis attack on RSA-based security protocols, thereby enhancing the security of mobile environments.