Attacking scrypt via Cache Timing Side-Channel

This paper gives a motivation for the design of memoryhard key derivation functions (KDFs), a summary of a memory-hard password-based key derivation function called scrypt, and an overview of cache timing attacks. A cache timing attack against scrypt is introduced and described in detail. Finally, additional work necessary to implement the attack and measures to prevent the attack are discussed. Since it is an actively-used utility for generating cryptographic keys, constructing a password stealing attack against scrypt raises serious security concerns for any applications that make use of it.