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CompTIA Security+ study material · question 489 of 611

An attacker recovers a key by measuring how long cryptographic operations take. What class of attack is this?

  1. A brute-force attack
  2. A downgrade attack
  3. A side-channel attack
  4. A collision attack
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Answer: C. A side-channel attack

Side channels read secrets from timing, power draw or emissions rather than from any weakness in the algorithm.

Source: NIST SP 800-63B Rev. 4 (NIST) — SP 800-63B-4 § 2.3.2

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