A note on distinguishing attacks

Håkan Englund; Martin Hell; Thomas Johansson

doi:10.1109/ITWITWN.2007.4318038

A note on distinguishing attacks

Håkan Englund, Martin Hell, Thomas Johansson

Department of Electrical and Information Technology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Paper in conference proceeding › peer-review

Abstract

A new distinguishing attack scenario for stream ciphers, allowing a resynchronization collision attack, is presented. The attack can succeed if the part of the state that depends on both the key and the IV is smaller than twice the key size. It is shown that the attack is applicable to block ciphers in OFB mode. For OFB mode, the attack is more powerful than the previously known generic distinguishing attack since it will directly recover a part of the plaintext while having the same asymptotic complexity as the generic distinguishing attack. The attack is also demonstrated on the eSTREAM candidate LEX. LEX is not vulnerable to any of the previously known generic distinguishing attack but is vulnerable to the new attack. It is shown that if approximately 265.7 resynchronizations using LEX are performed for the same key, some plaintext might be recovered.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	[Host publication title missing]
Publisher	IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	87-90
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4244-1200-6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ITWITWN.2007.4318038
Publication status	Published - 2007
Event	IEEE Information Theory Workshop on Information Theory for Wireless Networks - Bergen, Norway Duration: 2007 Jul 1 → 2007 Jul 6

Conference

Conference	IEEE Information Theory Workshop on Information Theory for Wireless Networks
Country/Territory	Norway
City	Bergen
Period	2007/07/01 → 2007/07/06

Subject classification (UKÄ)

Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

Access to Document

10.1109/ITWITWN.2007.4318038

Cite this

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title = "A note on distinguishing attacks",

abstract = "A new distinguishing attack scenario for stream ciphers, allowing a resynchronization collision attack, is presented. The attack can succeed if the part of the state that depends on both the key and the IV is smaller than twice the key size. It is shown that the attack is applicable to block ciphers in OFB mode. For OFB mode, the attack is more powerful than the previously known generic distinguishing attack since it will directly recover a part of the plaintext while having the same asymptotic complexity as the generic distinguishing attack. The attack is also demonstrated on the eSTREAM candidate LEX. LEX is not vulnerable to any of the previously known generic distinguishing attack but is vulnerable to the new attack. It is shown that if approximately 265.7 resynchronizations using LEX are performed for the same key, some plaintext might be recovered.",

author = "H{\aa}kan Englund and Martin Hell and Thomas Johansson",

year = "2007",

doi = "10.1109/ITWITWN.2007.4318038",

language = "English",

isbn = "978-1-4244-1200-6",

pages = "87--90",

booktitle = "[Host publication title missing]",

publisher = "IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",

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note = "IEEE Information Theory Workshop on Information Theory for Wireless Networks ; Conference date: 01-07-2007 Through 06-07-2007",

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TY - GEN

T1 - A note on distinguishing attacks

AU - Englund, Håkan

AU - Hell, Martin

AU - Johansson, Thomas

PY - 2007

Y1 - 2007

N2 - A new distinguishing attack scenario for stream ciphers, allowing a resynchronization collision attack, is presented. The attack can succeed if the part of the state that depends on both the key and the IV is smaller than twice the key size. It is shown that the attack is applicable to block ciphers in OFB mode. For OFB mode, the attack is more powerful than the previously known generic distinguishing attack since it will directly recover a part of the plaintext while having the same asymptotic complexity as the generic distinguishing attack. The attack is also demonstrated on the eSTREAM candidate LEX. LEX is not vulnerable to any of the previously known generic distinguishing attack but is vulnerable to the new attack. It is shown that if approximately 265.7 resynchronizations using LEX are performed for the same key, some plaintext might be recovered.

AB - A new distinguishing attack scenario for stream ciphers, allowing a resynchronization collision attack, is presented. The attack can succeed if the part of the state that depends on both the key and the IV is smaller than twice the key size. It is shown that the attack is applicable to block ciphers in OFB mode. For OFB mode, the attack is more powerful than the previously known generic distinguishing attack since it will directly recover a part of the plaintext while having the same asymptotic complexity as the generic distinguishing attack. The attack is also demonstrated on the eSTREAM candidate LEX. LEX is not vulnerable to any of the previously known generic distinguishing attack but is vulnerable to the new attack. It is shown that if approximately 265.7 resynchronizations using LEX are performed for the same key, some plaintext might be recovered.

U2 - 10.1109/ITWITWN.2007.4318038

DO - 10.1109/ITWITWN.2007.4318038

M3 - Paper in conference proceeding

SN - 978-1-4244-1200-6

SP - 87

EP - 90

BT - [Host publication title missing]

PB - IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

T2 - IEEE Information Theory Workshop on Information Theory for Wireless Networks

Y2 - 1 July 2007 through 6 July 2007

ER -

A note on distinguishing attacks

Abstract

Conference

Subject classification (UKÄ)

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Cite this