TTM4205¶
This is the official course website for TTM4205 Secure Cryptographic Implementations during Fall of 2025.
This course was taught for the first time during the fall semester of 2023. The course material and assignments from earlier
semesters can be found here: 2023 and 2024. Furthermore, the grade distribution in this course can be found at
karakterer.net/course/TTM4205, and I encourage you to check out the student evaluations from
2023 and 2024 and 2025.
Course Description¶
The course covers how to implement, analyse, attack, protect and securely compose cryptographic algorithms in practice.
It goes in depth on how to implement computer arithmetic, attacking implementations using side-channel attacks and fault
injection, exploit padding oracles and low-entropy randomness, utilise techniques to defend against these attacks, and how
to securely design misuse-resistant APIs.
See the full course description at ntnu.edu/studies/courses/TTM4205.
Course Staff¶
Lecturer: Tjerand Silde
Contact: tjerand.silde@ntnu.no
Office: Electro B225
Webpage: tjerandsilde.no
Lab/Teaching Assistant: Caroline Sandsbråten
Contact: caroline.sandsbraten@ntnu.no
Office: Electro B211
Webpage: carosa.no
Reference Group¶
The reference group consist of the following members:
- Tom Chauvier (tomchau), exchange student
- Jo Remvik (jo.v.remvik), MTKOM
- Anders Simensen (anderksi), MSTCNNS
Reference group meetings:
Ed Forum¶
We use Ed as a forum in this course, and enrolled students can access the forum at edstem.org/eu/courses/2376.
Note that the first time you log in to Ed you must do so using the link in the sidebar on Blackboard.
Course Materials¶
The course materials are the lecture slides, references therein, and the assignments.
We do not require that you buy any books, but recommend the following literature:
- Serious Cryptography by Jean-Philippe Aumasson at akademika.no
- Real-World Cryptography by David Wong at akademika.no
Additional great resources in applied cryptography are:
- A Graduate Course in Applied Cryptography by Dan Boneh and Victor Shoup at toc.cryptobook.us (freely available)
- Introduction to Modern Cryptography by Jonathan Katz and Yehuda Lindell at akademika.no or NTNU University Library
- The Hardware Hacking Handbook by Jasper van Woudenberg and Colin O'Flynn at akademika.no
Portfolio Assignment¶
The evaluation in this course will consist of three assignments of 100 points total.
All assignments must be submittet via Ovsys2 at: ovsys.iik.ntnu.no.
Weekly Problems (40 points)¶
This assignment will contain the following kinds of problems:
- Mathematical problems
- Coding problems
- CryptoHack problems
The assignement is available here: TTM4205 Weekly Problems (published 15/8)
The submission deadline is December 7th at 23:59.
ChipWhisperer Lab (20 points)¶
This assignment will contain side-channel attack lab work using the ChipWhisperer Husky
equipment, which we will provide to all students who signed up for the course. You have access
to the CRYPTO-LAB in Electro A176 to work on the assignment.
The assignement is available here: TTM4205 ChipWhisperer Lab (published 12/09)
The submission deadline is December 7th at 23:59.
A document containing some common problems and tips on how to resolve them is available here: TTM4205 ChipWhisperer Lab Common Problems. The equipment list is available here: TTM4205 ChipWhisperer Equipment List. The phsyical equipment can be found in the CRYPTO-LAB if you have not already picked it up.
Technical Essay (40 points)¶
This assignment is to write a technical essay about a topic not covered by the
lectures or to cover a topic from the lectures in more depth. It is mandatory for
each group to present their work, but it does not count towards the final grades.
Most important guidelines:
- Groups of 2 or 3 students each
- Essays of roughly 8 to 10 pages
- Essays written in LaTeX
- Short oral presentations
The assignement is available here: TTM4205 Technical Essay (published 15/8)
Deadlines:
- Topic/scope/group approval (mandatory, email): October 31st
- Short oral presentations (mandatory): Nov 10th or 14th or 17th
- Draft submission for feedback (voluntary): November 21st
- Receive feedback on draft (voluntary): December 5th
- Final submission (mandatory): December 19th at 23:59.
Grading¶
We will use the official NTNU grading scale to assign combined grades.
Lecture Plan¶
We have the following sessions in lecture room R73 this semester:
- Mondays at 15:15-17:00: Lecture
- Fridays at 12:15-14:00: Lecture OR Lab
- Fridays at 14:15-16:00: Exercises OR Lab
Guest lecture on Friday 21/11: Markku-Juhani O. Saarinen (Tampere) on "PQCP Support for RISC-V Vector, future Keccak Extensions"
(the schedule might be subject to small changes)
| Week | Date | Format | Responsible | Topic | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | 18/8 | Lecture | Tjerand | Course Introduction | Slides |
| 34 | 22/8 | Lecture | Tjerand | Randomness 1: Entropy | Slides |
| 34 | 22/8 | Exercises | Caroline | Exercise Class | |
| 35 | 25/8 | Lecture | Caroline | Randomness 2: Breaking ECDSA | Slides |
| 35 | 29/8 | Lecture | Tjerand | Randomness 3: Randomization | Slides |
| 35 | 29/8 | Exercises | Caroline | Exercise Class | |
| 36 | 1/9 | Lecture | Tjerand | Legacy Crypto 1: Crypto Wars | Slides |
| 36 | 5/9 | Lecture | Tjerand | Legacy Crypto 2: Attacks on TLS | Slides |
| 36 | 5/9 | Exercises | Caroline | Exercise Class | |
| 37 | 8/9 | Lecture | Tjerand | Padding Oracles 1: CBC and SHA | Slides |
| 37 | 12/9 | Lecture | Tjerand | Padding Oracles 2: RSA Encryption | Slides |
| 37 | 12/9 | Exercises | Caroline | Excercise Class | |
| 38 | 15/9 | Lecture | Tjerand | Quantum-Safe Encryption | Slides |
| 38 | 19/9 | Lecture | Tjerand | Quantum-Safe Signatures | Slides |
| 38 | 19/9 | Exercises | Caroline | Exercise Class | |
| 39 | 22/9 | Lecture | Tjerand | Side-Channel Attack (SCA): Intro | Slides |
| 39 | 26/9 | Lab | Caroline | SCA Setup Tutorial | Slides |
| 39 | 26/9 | Lab | Caroline | SCA Lab 1 (2h) | |
| 40 | 29/9 | Lecture | Tjerand | SCA on Symmetric Key Crypto | Slides |
| 40 | 3/10 | Lab | Caroline | SCA Lab 2 (4h) | |
| 41 | 6/10 | Lecture | Caroline | SCA on Public Key Crypto | Slides |
| 41 | 10/10 | Lab | Caroline | SCA Lab 3 (4h) | |
| 41 | 13/10 | Lecture | Tjerand | SCA on Quantum-Safe Crypto | Slides |
| 42 | 17/10 | Lab | Caroline | SCA Lab 4 (4h) | |
| 43 | 20/10 | Lecture | Tjerand | Crypto API Failures | Slides |
| 43 | 24/10 | No Lecture | |||
| 43 | 24/10 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Exercise Class / Lab | |
| 44 | 27/10 | No Lecture | |||
| 44 | 31/10 | No Lecture | |||
| 44 | 31/10 | No Exercise Class | |||
| 45 | 3/11 | Lecture | Tjerand | Commitments and Zero-Knowledge | Slides |
| 45 | 5/11 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Extra session at 13 @ CRYPTO-LAB | |
| 45 | 7/11 | Lecture | Tjerand | Course Summary | Slides |
| 45 | 7/11 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Exercise Class / Lab | |
| 46 | 10/11 | Presentations | Tjerand | Project Presentations | |
| 46 | 12/11 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Extra session at 13 @ CRYPTO-LAB | |
| 46 | 14/11 | Presentations | Tjerand | Project Presentations | |
| 46 | 14/11 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Exercise Class / Lab | |
| 47 | 17/11 | Presentations | Tjerand | Project Presentations | |
| 47 | 19/11 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Extra session at 13 @ CRYPTO-LAB | |
| 47 | 21/11 | Guest Lecture | Tjerand | Guest Lecture: Markku @ F6 | Slides |
| 47 | 21/11 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Exercise Class / Lab | |
| 48 | 26/11 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Extra session at 13 @ CRYPTO-LAB | |
| 48 | 3/12 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Extra session at 13 @ CRYPTO-LAB | |
| 48 | 5/12 | Exercises/Lab | Caroline | Extra session at 13 @ CRYPTO-LAB |