Achilles: A Formal Framework of Leaking Secrets from Signature Schemes via Rowhammer
Junkai Liang
34th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security '25) · Day 3 · Crypto 4: Systems and Protocols
In the realm of digital security, **signature schemes** serve as fundamental cryptographic building blocks, underpinning the integrity and authenticity of virtually every networked interaction. From securing network protocols and blockchain transactions to validating software updates and facilitating secret message transfers, their reliability is paramount. However, these critical schemes have repeatedly demonstrated vulnerabilities to **fault injection attacks**, a class of physical attacks that manipulate the operational environment of a computing system to induce errors in cryptographic computations, often leading to the leakage of secret keys. This talk, presented by Junkai Liang, introduces "Achilles," a novel, formal framework designed to systematically analyze and exploit signature schemes for secret leakage through **Rowhammer** attacks.
AI review
Solid academic security research that delivers a genuine contribution: a formal, generalizable framework for Rowhammer-based fault injection against signature schemes, with automated tooling (AutoWAR) and practical online exploitation demonstrated end-to-end. The work fills a real gap — BLS, MLS, and other widely deployed schemes had no systematic fault-injection analysis — and the quantum countermeasure bypass is a legitimately interesting wrinkle that elevates it above routine crypto-attack papers.