International Association
for Cryptologic Research

Post-quantum cryptography represents a category of cryptosystems resistant to quantum algorithms. Recently, NIST launched a process to standardize one or more of such algorithms in the key encapsulation mechanism and signature categories. Such schemes are under the scrutiny of their mathematical security, but they are not side-channel secure at the algorithm level. That is why their side-channel vulnerabilities must be assessed by the research community. In this paper, we present a non-profiled correlation electromagnetic analysis against an FPGA implementation of the chosen NIST key-encapsulation mechanism standard, CRYSTALS-Kyber. The attack correlates an electromagnetic radiation model of the polynomial multiplication execution with the captured traces. With 166,620 traces, this attack correctly recovers 100% of the subkeys. Furthermore, a countermeasure is presented for securing the target implementation against the presented attack.

Success Rate (SR) is empirically and theoretically a common metric for evaluating the performance of side-channel attacks. Intuitive expressions of success rate are desirable since they reveal and explain the functional dependence on relevant parameters, such as number of measurements and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), in a straightforward manner. Meanwhile, existing works more or less expose unsolved fundamental problems, such as strong leakage assumption, difficulty in interpretation of principle, inaccurate evaluation, and inconsideration of high-order SR. In this paper, we first provide an intuitive framework that statistical tests embedded in different univariate DPA attacks are unified as analyzing and comparing visualized vectors in a Euclidean space by using different easy-to-understand metrics. Then, we establish a unified framework to abstract and convert the security evaluations to the problem of finding a boundary in the Euclidean space. With expressions of the boundary, judging whether a DPA attack succeeds in sense of $o^{th}$-order becomes fairly efficient and intuitive, and the corresponding SR can be calculated theoretically by integral. Finally, we propose an algorithm that is capable of estimating arbitrary order of SR effectively. Our experimental results verify the theory and highlight the superiority. We believe our research raises many new perspectives for comparing and evaluating side-channel attacks, countermeasures and implementations.

A hash-and-sign signature based on preimage-sampleable function (PSF) (Gentry et al. [STOC 2008]) is secure in the Quantum Random Oracle Model (QROM) if the PSF is collision-resistant (Boneh et al. [ASIACRYPT 2011]) or one-way (Zhandry [CRYPTO 2012]). However, trapdoor functions (TDFs) in code-based and multivariate-quadratic-based (MQ-based) signatures are not PSFs; for example, underlying TDFs of the Courtois-Finiasz-Sendrier (CFS), Unbalanced Oil and Vinegar (UOV), and Hidden Field Equations (HFE) signatures are not surjection. Thus, such signature schemes adopt probabilistic hash-and-sign with retry. This paradigm is secure in the (classical) Random Oracle Model (ROM), assuming that the underlying TDF is non-invertible; that is, it is hard to find a preimage of a given random value in the range (e.g., Sakumoto et al. [PQCRYPTO 2011] for the modified UOV/HFE signatures). Unfortunately, there is no known security proof for the probabilistic hash-and-sign with retry in the QROM. We give the first security proof for the probabilistic hash-and-sign with retry in the QROM, assuming that the underlying non-PSF TDF is non-invertible. Our reduction from the non-invertibility is tighter than the existing ones that apply to only signature schemes based on PSFs. We apply the security proof to code-based and MQ-based signatures. Moreover, we extend the proof into the multi-key setting by using prefix hashing (Duman et al. [ACM CCS 2021]).

What does it mean to commit to a quantum state? In this work, we propose a simple answer: a commitment to quantum messages is binding if, after the commit phase, the committed state is hidden from the sender's view. We accompany this new definition with several instantiations. We build the first non-interactive succinct quantum state commitments, which can be seen as an analogue of collision-resistant hashing for quantum messages. We also show that hiding quantum state commitments (QSCs) are implied by any commitment scheme for classical messages. All of our constructions can be based on quantum-cryptographic assumptions that are implied by but are potentially weaker than one-way functions.

Commitments to quantum states open the door to many new cryptographic possibilities. Our flagship application of a succinct QSC is a quantum-communication version of Kilian's succinct arguments for any language that has quantum PCPs with constant error and polylogarithmic locality. Plugging in the PCP theorem, this yields succinct arguments for NP under significantly weaker assumptions than required classically; moreover, if the quantum PCP conjecture holds, this extends to QMA. At the heart of our security proof is a new rewinding technique for extracting quantum information.

Differential obliviousness (DO) access pattern privacy is a privacy notion which guarantees that the access patterns of a program satisfy differential privacy. Differential obliviousness was studied in a sequence of recent works as a relaxation of full obliviousness. Earlier works showed that DO not only allows us to circumvent the logarithmic-overhead barrier of fully oblivious algorithms, in many cases, it also allows us to achieve polynomial speedup over full obliviousness, since it avoids "padding to the worst-case" behavior of fully oblivious algorithms.

Despite the promises of differential obliviousness (DO), a significant barrier that hinders its broad application is the lack of composability. In particular, when we apply one DO algorithm to the output of another DO algorithm, the composed algorithm may no longer be DO (with reasonable parameters). More specifically, the outputs of the first DO algorithm on two neighboring inputs may no longer be neighboring, and thus we cannot directly benefit from the DO guarantee of the second algorithm.

In this work, we are the first to explore a theory of composition for differentially oblivious algorithms. We propose a refinement of the DO notion called $(\epsilon, \delta)$-neighbor-preserving-DO, or $(\epsilon, \delta)$-NPDO for short, and we prove that our new notion indeed provides nice compositional guarantees. In this way, the algorithm designer can easily track the privacy loss when composing multiple DO algorithms.

We give several example applications to showcase the power and expressiveness of our new NPDO notion. One of these examples is a result of independent interest: we use the compositional framework to prove an optimal privacy amplification theorem for the differentially oblivious shuffle model. In other words, we show that for a class of distributed differentially private mechanisms in the shuffle-model, one can replace the perfectly secure shuffler with a DO shuffler, and nonetheless enjoy almost the same privacy amplification enabled by a shuffler.

The celebrated LLL algorithm for Euclidean lattices is central to cryptanalysis of well- known and deployed protocols as it provides approximate solutions to the Shortest Vector Problem (SVP). Recent interest in algebrically structured lattices (e.g., for the efficient implementation of lattice- based cryptography) has prompted adapations of LLL to such structured lattices, and, in particular, to module lattices, i.e., lattices that are modules over algebraic ring extensions of the integers. One of these adaptations is a quantum algorithm proposed by Lee, Pellet-Mary, Stehlé and Wallet (Asiacrypt 2019). In this work, we dequantize the algorithm of Lee et al., and provide a fully classical LLL-type algorithm for arbitrary module lattices that achieves same SVP approximation factors, single exponential in the rank of the input module. Just like the algorithm of Lee et al., our algorithm runs in polynomial time given an oracle that solves the Closest Vector Problem (CVP) in a certain, fixed lattice L_K that depends only on the number field K.

Plonk is a widely used succinct non-interactive proof system that uses univariate polynomial commitments. Plonk is quite flexible: it supports circuits with low-degree ``custom'' gates as well as circuits with lookup gates (a lookup gate ensures that its input is contained in a predefined table). For large circuits, the bottleneck in generating a Plonk proof is the need for computing a large FFT.

We present HyperPlonk, an adaptation of Plonk to the boolean hypercube, using multilinear polynomial commitments. HyperPlonk retains the flexibility of Plonk but provides several additional benefits. First, it avoids the need for an FFT during proof generation. Second, and more importantly, it supports custom gates of much higher degree than Plonk without harming the running time of the prover. Both of these can dramatically speed up the prover's running time. Since HyperPlonk relies on multilinear polynomial commitments, we revisit two elegant constructions: one from Orion and one from Virgo. We show how to reduce the Orion opening proof size to less than 10kb (an almost factor 1000 improvement) and show how to make the Virgo FRI-based opening proof simpler and shorter.

Cryptocurrencies have become tremendously popular since the creation of Bitcoin. However, its central Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism is very power hungry. As an alternative, Proof-of-Space (PoS) was introduced that uses storage instead of computations to create a consensus. However, current PoS implementations are complex and sensitive to the Nothing-at-Stake problem, and use mitigations that affect their permissionless and decentralised nature.

We introduce Proof-of-Space Search (PoSS) which embraces Hellman's time-memory trade-off to create a much simpler algorithm that avoids the Nothing-at-Stake problem. Additionally, we greatly stabilise block-times using a novel dynamic Logarithmic Embargo (LE) rule. Combined, we show that PoSSLE is a simple and stable alternative to PoW with many of its properties, while being an estimated 10 times more energy efficient and sustaining consistent block times.

The Non-Interactive Anonymous Router (NIAR) model was introduced by Shi and Wu [SW21] as an alternative to conventional solutions to the anonymous routing problem, in which a set of senders wish to send messages to a set of receivers. In contrast to most known approaches to support anonymous routing (e.g. mix-nets, DC-nets, etc.) which rely on a network of routers communicating with users via interactive protocols, the NIAR model assumes a $single$ router and is inherently $non$-$interactive$ (after an initial setup phase). In addition to being non-interactive, the NIAR model is compelling due to the security it provides: instead of relying on the honesty of some subset of the routers, the NIAR model requires anonymity even if the router (as well as an arbitrary subset of senders/receivers) is corrupted.

In this paper, we present a protocol for the NIAR model that improves upon the results from [SW21] in two ways:

- Improved computational efficiency (quadratic to near linear): Our protocol matches the communication complexity of [SW21] for each sender/receiver, while reducing the computational overhead for the router to polylog overhead instead of linear overhead.

- Relaxation of assumptions: Security of the protocol in [SW21] relies on the Decisional Linear assumption in bilinear groups; while security for our protocol follows from the existence of any rate-1 oblivious transfer (OT) protocol (instantiations of this primitive are known to exist under DDH, QR and LWE [DGI19,GHO20]).

PlonK is a prominent universal and updatable zk-SNARK for general circuit satisfiability. We present aPlonK, a variant of PlonK that reduces the proof size and verification time when multiple statements are proven in a batch. Both the aggregated proof size and the verification complexity of aPlonK are logarithmic in the number of aggregated statements. Our main building block, inspired by the techniques developed in SnarkPack (Gailly, Maller, Nitulescu, FC 2022), is a multi-polynomial commitment scheme, a new primitive that generalizes polynomial commitment schemes. Our techniques also include a mechanism for involving committed data into PlonK statements very efficiently, which can be of independent interest. We also implement an open-source industrial-grade library for zero-knowledge PlonK proofs with support for aPlonK. Our experimental results show that our techniques are suitable for real-world applications (such as blockchain rollups), achieving significant performance improvements in proof size and verification time.

Differential attacks are among the most important families of cryptanalysis against symmetric primitives. Since their introduction in 1990, several improvements to the basic technique as well as many dedicated attacks against symmetric primitives have been proposed. Most of the proposed improvements concern the key-recovery part. However, when designing a new primitive, the security analysis regarding differential attacks is often limited to finding the best trails over a limited number of rounds with branch and bound techniques, and a poor heuristic is then applied to deduce the total number of rounds a differential attack could reach. In this work we analyze the security of the SPEEDY family of block ciphers against differential cryptanalysis and show how to optimize many of the steps of the key-recovery procedure for this type of attacks. For this, we implemented a search for finding optimal trails for this cipher and their associated multiple probabilities under some constraints and applied non-trivial techniques to obtain optimal data and key-sieving. This permitted us to fully break SPEEDY-7-192, the 7-round variant of SPEEDY supposed to provide 192-bit security. Our work demonstrates among others the need to better understand the subtleties of differential cryptanalysis in order to get meaningful estimates on the security offered by a cipher against these attacks.

Blind signatures are a fundamental tool for privacy-preserving applications. Known constructions of concurrently secure blind signature schemes either are prohibitively inefficient or rely on non-standard assumptions, even in the random oracle model. A recent line of work (ASIACRYPT `21, CRYPTO `22) initiated the study of concretely efficient schemes based on well-understood assumptions in the random oracle model. However, these schemes still have several major drawbacks: 1) The signer is required to keep state; 2) The computation grows linearly with the number of signing interactions, making the schemes impractical; 3) The schemes require at least five moves of interaction.

In this paper, we introduce a blind signature scheme that eliminates all of the above drawbacks at the same time. Namely, we show a round-optimal, concretely efficient, concurrently secure, and stateless blind signature scheme in which communication and computation are independent of the number of signing interactions. Our construction also naturally generalizes to the partially blind signature setting.

Our scheme is based on the CDH assumption in the asymmetric pairing setting and can be instantiated using a standard BLS curve. We obtain signature and communication sizes of 9KB and 36KB, respectively. To further improve the efficiency of our scheme, we show how to obtain a scheme with better amortized communication efficiency. Our approach batches the issuing of signatures for multiple messages.

The invertibility of a random function (IRF, in short) is an important problem and has wide applications in cryptography. For ex- ample, searching a preimage of Hash functions, recovering a key of block ciphers under the known-plaintext-attack model, solving discrete loga- rithms over a prime field with large prime, and so on, can be viewed as its instances. In this work we describe the invertibility of multiple random functions (IMRF, in short), which is a generalization of the IRF. In order to solve the IMRF, we generalize the birthday theorem. Based on the generalized birthday theorem and time-memory tradeoff (TMTO, in short) method, we present an efficient TMTO method of solving an IMRF, which can be viewed as a generalization of three main TMTO attacks, that is, Hellman’s attack, Biryukov and Shamir’s attack with BSW sampling, and Biryukov, Mukhopadhyay and Sarkar’s time- memory-key tradeoff attack. Our method is highly parallel and suitable for distributed computing environments. As a generalization of Hellman’s attack, our method overcomes its shortcoming of using only one pair of known plaintext and ciphertext and first admits more than one datum in a TMTO on block ciphers at the single key scenario. As a generaliza- tion of Biryukov and Shamir’s attack with BSW sampling, our method overcomes its shortcoming of using only a few data with specific prefix in stream ciphers and can utilize all data without any waste. As appli- cations, we get two new tradeoff curves: N2 = TM2D3, N = PD and D=τforblockciphers,andN2 =τ3TM2D2,N=τPDandD≥τ for stream ciphers, where τ is the number of random functions, that is, the number of independent computing units available to an attacker, N is the size of key space (for block ciphers) or state (for stream ci- phers) space, D the number of data captured by the attacker, and T, M, P the time/memory/precomputation cost consumed at each computing unit respectively. As examples, assume that 4096 computing units can be available for the attacker. Denote by 5-tuple (τ, T, M, D, P ) the costof our method. Then the cost of breaking DES, AES-128 and A5/1 is (212, 225.3, 225.3, 212, 244), (212, 273.3, 273.3, 212, 2116) and (212, 222.7, 217.3,217.3, 234.7) respectively

We present a new public-key ABE for DFA based on the LWE assumption, achieving security against collusions of a-priori bounded size. Our scheme achieves ciphertext size $\tilde{O}(\ell + B)$ for attributes of length $\ell$ and collusion size $B$. Prior LWE-based schemes has either larger ciphertext size $\tilde{O}(\ell \cdot B)$, or are limited to the secret-key setting. Along the way, we introduce a new technique for lattice trapdoor sampling, which we believe would be of independent interest. Finally, we present a simple candidate public-key ABE for DFA for the unbounded collusion setting.

A trace and revoke ($\sf{TR}$) scheme is an $N$ user traitor tracing scheme which additionally enables the encryptor to specify a list $L \subseteq$ of revoked users so that these users can no longer decrypt ciphertexts. The ``holy grail'' of this line of work is a construction which resists unbounded collusions, achieves ciphertext, public and secret key sizes independent (ignoring logarithmic dependencies) of $|L|$ and $|N|$, and is based on polynomial hardness assumptions. In this work we make the following contributions:

1. Public Trace Setting: We provide a construction which (i) achieves optimal parameters, (ii) supports embedding identities (from an exponential space) in user secret keys, (iii) relies on polynomial hardness assumptions, namely compact functional encryption (${\sf FE}$) and a key-policy attribute based encryption (${\sf ABE}$) with special efficiency properties constructed by Boneh et al. (Eurocrypt 2014) from Learning With Errors (${\sf LWE}$), and (iv) enjoys adaptive security with respect to the revocation list. The previous best known construction by Nishimaki, Wichs and Zhandry (Eurocrypt 2016) which achieved optimal parameters and embedded identities, relied on indistinguishability obfuscation, which is considered an inherently subexponential assumption and achieved only selective security with respect to the revocation list. 2. Secret Trace Setting: We provide the first construction with optimal ciphertext, public and secret key sizes and embedded identities from any assumption outside Obfustopia. In detail, our construction relies on Lockable Obfuscation which can be constructed using ${\sf LWE}$ (Goyal, Koppula, Waters and Wichs, Zirdelis, Focs 2017) and two ${\sf ABE}$ schemes: (i) the key-policy scheme with special efficiency properties by Boneh et al. (Eurocrypt 2014) and (ii) a ciphertext-policy ${\sf ABE}$ for ${\sf P}$ which was recently constructed by Wee (Eurocrypt 2022) using a new assumption called evasive and tensor ${\sf LWE}$. This assumption, introduced to build an ${\sf ABE}$, is believed to be much weaker than lattice based assumptions underlying ${\sf FE}$ or ${\sf iO}$ -- in particular it is required even for lattice based broadcast, without trace.

Moreover, by relying on subexponential security of ${\sf LWE}$, both our constructions can also support a super-polynomial sized revocation list, so long as it allows efficient representation and membership testing. Ours is the first work to achieve this, to the best of our knowledge.

This paper provides a cryptographic application to our previous paper [Li22h], where we considered noisy systems of discrete exponential equations over a land, which is a monoid without the requirement of associativity. In this paper we give a general methodology for signature scheme construction from noisy systems.

The Distorted Bounded Distance Decoding Problem (DBDD) was introduced by Dachman-Soled et al. [Crypto ’20] as an intermediate problem between LWE and unique-SVP (uSVP). They presented an approach that reduces an LWE instance to a DBDD instance, integrates side information (or “hints”) into the DBDD instance, and finally reduces it to a uSVP instance, which can be solved via lattice reduction. They showed that this principled approach can lead to algorithms that perform better than ad-hoc algorithms that do not rely on lattice reduction. The current work focuses on new methods for integrating hints into a DBDD instance. We introduce a variant of DBDD which we coin Ellipsoidal Bounded Distance Decoding (EBDD), and view an EBDD instance as providing the promise that the correct solution is the unique lattice point contained in an ellipsoid. We then view “hints” as geometric operations on the EBDD ellipsoid. Our approach allows us to introduce two new types of hints: (1) Inequality hints, corresponding to the region of intersection of an ellipsoid and a halfspace; (2) Combined hints, corresponding to the region of intersection of two ellipsoids. Since the regions in (1) and (2) are not necessarily ellipsoids, we replace them with approximations. We also consider compatibility of our approach with “perfect,” “approximate,” “modular,” and “short vector” hints from the prior work. We apply our techniques to the decryption failure and side-channel attack settings. We show that “inequality hints” can be used to model decryption failures, and that our new approach yields a geometric analogue of the “failure boosting” technique of D’anvers et al. [ePrint, ’18]. We also show that “combined hints” can be used to fuse information from a decryption failure and a side-channel attack, resulting in reduced hardness of the resulting uSVP instance, compared to a naive combination of the information. We provide experimental data for both applications. The code that we have developed to implement the integration of hints and hardness estimates extends the Toolkit from prior work and has been released publicly.

The history of equations dates back to thousands of years ago, though the equals sign "=" was only invented in 1557. We formalize the processes of "decomposition" and "restoration" in mathematics and physics by defining "discrete exponential equations" and "noisy equation systems" over an abstract structure called a "land", which is more general than fields, rings, groups, and monoids. Our abstract equations and systems provide general languages for many famous computational problems such as integer factorization, ideal factorization, isogeny factorization, learning parity with noise, learning with errors, learning with rounding, etc. From the abstract equations and systems we deduce a list of new decomposition problems and noisy learning problems. We also give algorithms for discrete exponential equations and systems over algebraic integers. Our motivations are to develop a theory of decomposition and restoration; to unify the scattered studies of decomposition problems and noisy learning problems; and to further permeate the ideas of decomposition and restoration into all possible branches of mathematics. A direct application is a methodology for finding new hardness assumptions for cryptography.

SPyCoDe (Semantic and Cryptographic Foundations of Security and Privacy by Compositional Design) is a special research program funded by FWF.

We offer 14 interdisciplinary and interconnected research projects at the intersection of Cryptography, System Security, and Formal Methods. The projects are listed below, each is led by a PI in collaboration with at least another member of the SPyCoDe faculty

1. Cross-Layer Security for Blockchain Consensus (Pietrzak, ISTA)
2. Cross-Layer Side-Channel Security (Gruss, TU Graz)
3. Cryptographic Techniques for Blockchain Security (Andreeva, TU Vienna)
4. Cryptographic Techniques for System Security (Eichlseder, TU Graz)
5. Enforcement of Security and Privacy Policies across Multi-Party Code (Lindorfer, TU Vienna)
6. Formal Verification of Side Channel Properties (Bloem, TU Graz)
7. Game-Theoretic Models for Blockchain Applications (Fuchsbauer, TU Vienna)
8. Interface Theory for Security and Privacy Employer (Henzinger, ISTA)
9. Logic-based Reasoning for Hyperproperties (Kovács, TU Vienna)
10. Quantitative and Probabilistic Security Analysis (Oswald, U Klagenfurt)
11. Secure Blockchains in Network Transition Periods (Ullrich, U Vienna)
12. Secure Network and Hardware for Efficient Blockchains (ISTA, Kokoris-Kogias)
13. Security and Privacy by Design for Smart Contracts (Maffei, TU Vienna)
14. Side-Channel Resistant System Design (Mangard, Graz)

Closing date for applications:

Contact: Olha Denisova recruiting-questions@spycode.at for questions about the application. Any of the affiliated faculty (https://spycode.at/people/) with questions about their projects.

More information: https://spycode.at/apply/

The Laboratory for Computation Security at EPFL, led by Prof. Alessandro Chiesa, is hiring a Cryptography Engineer.

You will join the lab as a full-time developer, and collaborate with other researchers (graduate students and postdoctoral scholars) to create high-quality open-source software that realizes complex cryptographic protocols.

The group's research include, but is not limited to, computational complexity, zero-knowledge proofs, succint non-interactive arguments (SNARGs) and privacy-enhancing technologies (such as peer-to-peer private payment systems and smart contracts).

Responsabilities:

• Realizing secure and efficient implementations of new cryptographic protocols
• Developing and contributing to open-source libraries for cryptographic proofs
• Helping prepare pedagogical material (software projects for courses)

Your Profile:

• Master's degree in Computer Science (or equivalent engineering experience)
• Experience in software development with Rust and C++
• Knowledge of basic algebra (groups, finite fields, ...) and basic cryptography (hash functions, encryption, ...)

For the full job posting, please refer to: https://recruiting.epfl.ch/Vacancies/2318/Description/2

Closing date for applications:

Contact: Alessandro Chiesa

More information: https://recruiting.epfl.ch/Vacancies/2318/Description/2