Abstract. Modern Graphics Processing Units (GPU) have reached a dimension with respect to performance and gate count exceeding conventional Central Processing Units (CPU) by far. Many modern computer systems include – beside a CPU – such a powerful GPU which runs idle most of the time and might be used as cheap and instantly available co-processor for general purpose applications. In this contribution, we focus on the efficient realisation of the computationally expensive operations in asymmetric cryptosystems on such off-the-shelf GPUs. More precisely, we present improved and novel implementations employing GPUs as accelerator for RSA and DSA cryptosystems as well as for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). Using a recent Nvidia 8800GTS graphics card, we are able to compute 813 modular exponentiations per second for RSA or DSA-based systems with 1024 bit integers. Moreover, our design for ECC over the prime field P-224 even achieves the throughput of 1412 point multiplications per second.

Abstract. Graphics processing units (GPUs) have become popular devices for accelerating general purpose computing. In recent years there has been a surge in research involving the use of GPUs as cryptographic accelerators. Research has shown that contemporary GPU architectures can achieve higher throughput in the context of both symmetric and asymmetric key cryptography than a traditional CPU. Despite the existence of these new approaches, there remains no way for OS kernel services or userspace applications to make use of these implementations in a practical manner. To overcome this shortcoming, this paper investigates the integration of GPU accelerated cryptographic algorithms with an established service virtualisation layer within the Linux kernel, the OCF-Linux framework. This paper demonstrates that it is feasible to use a centralised kernel service to provide a standardised abstraction to GPU accelerated cryptographic functions for both kernelspace and userspace components. 1