Towards a general RC4-like keystream generator

G Gong, K C Gupta, Martin Hell, Y Nawaz

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingPaper in conference proceedingpeer-review

Abstract

RC4 was designed in 1987 when 8-bit and 16-bit processors were commercially available. Today, most processors use 32-bit or 64-bit words but using original RC4 with 32/64 bits is infeasible due to the large memory constraints and the number of operations in the key scheduling algorithm. In this paper we propose a new 32/64-bit RC4-like keystream generator. The proposed generator produces 32 or 64 bits in each iteration and can be implemented in software with reasonable memory requirements. It has a huge internal state and offers higher resistance to state recovery attacks than the original 8-bit RC4. Further, on a 32-bit processor the generator is 3.1 times faster than original RC4. We also show that it can resist attacks that are successful on the original RC4. The generator is suitable for high speed software encryption.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInformation Security and Cryptology / Lecture notes in computer science
PublisherSpringer
Pages162-174
Volume3822
ISBN (Print)978-3-540-30855-3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2005
EventInformation Security and Cryptology First SKLOIS Conference, CISC 2005 - Beijing, China
Duration: 2005 Dec 152005 Dec 17

Publication series

Name
Volume3822
ISSN (Print)1611-3349
ISSN (Electronic)0302-9743

Conference

ConferenceInformation Security and Cryptology First SKLOIS Conference, CISC 2005
Country/TerritoryChina
CityBeijing
Period2005/12/152005/12/17

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

Free keywords

  • stream ciphers
  • random shuffle
  • keystream generator
  • RC4

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Towards a general RC4-like keystream generator'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this