Minerva attack can recover private keys from smart cards, cryptographic libraries

Czech academics have detailed a new cryptographic attack that can recover private keys used to sign operations on some smart cards and cryptographic libraries. Once obtained, the private key can allow attackers to spoof any smart cards or sign other cryptographic operations secured by the affected libraries. The attack, named Minerva, was discovered earlier this year in March by academics from the Centre for Research on Cryptography and Security at the Masaryk University, in the Czech Republic.