IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
24 September 2023
Jonas Meers, Julian Nowakowski
Jianhua Wang, Lu Qin, Baofeng Wu
First, we propose the variable substitution technique for middle rounds of a cipher, in which polynomials on the key variables in the algebraic expressions of internal states are substituted by new variables. This will improve computational complexity of the superpoly recovery and promise more compact superpolys that can be easily decomposed with respect to the new variables. Second, we propose the vector numeric mapping technique, which seeks out a tradeoff between efficiency of the numeric mapping technique (Crypto 2019) and accuracy of the monomial prediction technique (Asiacrypt 2020) in degree evaluation of superpolys. Combining with this technique, a fast pruning method is given and modeled by MILP to filter good ISoCs of which the algebraic degree satisfies some fixed threshold. Thanks to automated MILP solvers, it becomes practical to comprehensively search for good cubes across the entire search space.
To illustrate the power of our techniques, we apply all of them to Trivium stream cipher. As a result, we have recovered the superpolys of three cubes given by Kesarwani et al. in 2020, only to find they do not have zero-sum property up to 842 rounds as claimed in their paper. To our knowledge, the previous best practical key recovery attack was on 820-round Trivium with complexity $2^{53.17}$. We put forward 820-, 825- and 830-round practical key-recovery attacks, in which there are $\mathbf{2^{80}\times 87.8\%}$, $\mathbf{2^{80}\times 83\%}$ and $\mathbf{2^{80}\times 65.7\%}$ keys that could be practically recovered, respectively, if we consider $\mathbf{2^{60}}$ as the upper bound for practical computational complexity. Besides, even for computers with computational power not exceeding $\mathbf{2^{52}}$ (resp. $\mathbf{2^{55}}$), we can still recover $\mathbf{58\%}$ (resp. $\mathbf{46.6\%}$) of the keys in the key space for 820 rounds (resp. 830 rounds). Our attacks have led 10 rounds more than the previous best practical attack.
JINGWEI HU
George Kadianakis, Mary Maller, Andrija Novakovic
Valerio Cini, Russell W. F. Lai, Giulio Malavolta
- The first recursive folding (i.e. Bulletproofs-like) protocol for linear relations with polylogarithmic verifier runtime. Traditionally, the verifier runtime has been the efficiency bottleneck for such protocols (regardless of the underlying assumptions). - The first verifiable delay function (VDF) based on lattices, building on a recently introduced sequential relation. - The first lattice-based \emph{linear-time prover} succinct argument for NP, in the preprocessing model. The soundness of the scheme is based on (knowledge)-k-R-ISIS assumption [Albrecht et al., CRYPTO'22].
Charlotte Hoffmann, Pavel Hubáček, Chethan Kamath, Tomáš Krňák
First, we show that modular Lucas sequences are at least as sequentially hard as the classical delay function given by iterated modular squaring proposed by Rivest, Shamir, and Wagner (MIT Tech. Rep. 1996) in the context of time-lock puzzles. Moreover, there is no obvious reduction in the other direction, which suggests that the assumption of sequential hardness of modular Lucas sequences is strictly weaker than that of iterated modular squaring. In other words, the sequential hardness of modular Lucas sequences might hold even in the case of an algorithmic improvement violating the sequential hardness of iterated modular squaring. Moreover, we note that modular Lucas sequences also yield a time-lock puzzle, similar to the classical construction of Rivest, Shamir and Wagner.
Second, we demonstrate the feasibility of constructing practically-efficient verifiable delay functions based on the sequential hardness of modular Lucas sequences. Our construction builds on the work of Pietrzak (ITCS 2019) by leveraging the intrinsic connection between the problem of computing modular Lucas sequences and exponentiation in an appropriate extension field.
Marc Fischlin, Felix Rohrbach
One open question is to determine the minimal assumption needed to instantiate ELFs. While all constructions of ELFs depend on some form of exponentially-secure public-key primitive, it was conjectured that exponentially-secure secret-key primitives, such as one-way functions, hash functions or one-way product functions, might be sufficient to build ELFs. In this work we answer this conjecture mostly negative: We show that no primitive, which can be derived from a random oracle (which includes all secret-key primitives mentioned above), is enough to construct even moderately lossy functions in a black-box manner. However, we also show that (extremely) lossy functions themselves do not imply public-key cryptography, leaving open the option to build ELFs from some intermediate primitive between the classical categories of secret-key and public-key cryptography.
Sara Logsdon
Roman Langrehr
We analyze the security of the LWE-based NIKE by Ding et al. (ePrint 2012) and Peikert (PQCrypt 2014) in a multi-user setting where the same public key is used to generate shared keys with multiple other users. The Diffie-Hellman key exchange achieves this security notion. The mentioned LWE-based NIKE scheme comes with an inherent correctness error (Guo et al., PKC 2020), and this has significant implications for the multi-user security, necessitating a closer examination.
Single-user security generically implies multi-user security when all users generate their keys honestly for NIKE schemes with negligible correctness error. However, the LWE-based NIKE requires a super-polynomial modulus to achieve a negligible correctness error, which makes the scheme less efficient. We show that - generically, single-user security does not imply multi-user security when the correctness error is non-negligible, but despite this - the LWE-based NIKE with polynomial modulus is multi-user secure for honest users when the number of users is fixed in advance. This result takes advantage of the leakage-resilience properties of LWE.
We then turn to a stronger model of multi-user security that allows adversarially generated public keys. For this model, we consider a variant of the LWE-based NIKE where each public key is equipped with a NIZKPoK of the secret key. Adding NIZKPoKs is a standard technique for this stronger model and Hesse et al. (Crypto 2018) showed that this is sufficient to achieve security in the stronger multi-user security model for perfectly correct NIKEs (which the LWE-based NIKE is not). We show that - for certain parameters that include all parameters with polynomial modulus, the LWE-based NIKE can be efficiently attacked with adversarially generated public keys, despite the use of NIZKPoKs, but - for suitable parameters (that require a super-polynomial modulus), this security notion is achieved by the LWE-based NIKE with NIZKPoKs. This stronger security notion has been previously achieved for LWE-based NIKE only in the QROM, while all our results are in the standard model.
Calvin Abou Haidar, Alain Passelègue, Damien Stehlé
In this work, we construct the first LWE-based UPKE scheme with polynomial modulus-to-noise rate, which is CPA-secure in the standard model. At the core of our security analysis is a generalized reduction from the standard LWE problem to (a stronger version of) the Extended LWE problem. We further extend our construction to achieve stronger security notions by proposing two generic transforms. Our first transform allows to obtain CCA security in the random oracle model and adapts the Fujisaki-Okamoto transform to the UPKE setting. Our second transform allows to achieve security against malicious updates by adding a NIZK argument in the update mechanism. In the process, we also introduce the notion of Updatable Key Encapsulation Mechanism (UKEM), as the updatable variant of KEMs. Overall, we obtain a CCA-secure UKEM in the random oracle model whose ciphertext sizes are of the same order of magnitude as that of CRYSTALS-Kyber.
21 September 2023
Aurel Page, Benjamin Wesolowski
We prove a number of consequences. First, assuming the hardness of the endomorphism ring problem, the Charles–Goren–Lauter hash function is collision resistant, and the SQIsign identification protocol is sound. Second, the endomorphism ring problem is equivalent to the problem of computing arbitrary isogenies between supersingular elliptic curves, a result previously known only for isogenies of smooth degree. Third, there exists an unconditional probabilistic algorithm to solve the endomorphism ring problem in time $\tilde O(p^{1/2})$, a result that previously required to assume the generalized Riemann hypothesis.
To prove our main result, we introduce a flexible framework for the study of isogeny graphs with additional information. We prove a general and easy-to-use rapid mixing theorem.
Nina Bindel, Nicolas Gama, Sandra Guasch, Eyal Ronen
Kaiyi Zhang, Qingju Wang, Yu Yu, Chun Guo, Hongrui Cui
However, the exact hardness of these new one-way functions deserves further study and scrutiny. This work presents algebraic attacks on RAIN and AIM for certain instances, where one-round Rain can be compromised in $2^{n/2}$ for security parameter $n\in \{128,192,256\}$, and two-round Rain can be broken in $2^{120.3}$, $2^{180.4}$, and $2^{243.1}$ encryptions, respectively. Additionally, we demonstrate an attack on AIM-III (which aims at 192-bit security) with a complexity of $2^{186.5}$ encryptions. These attacks exploit the algebraic structure of the power function over fields with characteristic 2, which provides potential insights into the algebraic structures of some symmetric primitives and thus might be of independent interest.
David Jacquemin, Anisha Mukherjee, Ahmet Can Mert, Sujoy Sinha Roy
Ronan Lashermes, Hélène Le Bouder
Specifically, we demonstrate the feasibility of reconstructing a symmetric cryptographic cipher, even in scenarios where traces are sampled with information loss and noise, such as when measuring the power consumption of the chip.
EURECOM; Sophia Antipolis, France
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Antonio Faonio
More information: https://www.eurecom.fr/en/job/zero-knowledge-proofs
NUS-Singapore and the University of Sheffield, UK
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Dr Prosanta Gope (p.gope@sheffield.ac.uk)
University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
The CryptoLux group of the University of Luxembourg has a vacancy for a post-doctoral researcher in the area of security/privacy of blockchains and smart contracts. The successful candidate will contribute to a research project entitled Advanced Cryptography for Finance and Privacy (CryptoFin), which is funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR). Starting in September 2023, CryptoFin will run over a period of 3 years and be carried out in collaboration with the cryptography teams of Stanford University and Ethereum foundation. The mission of the CryptoFin project is to develop innovative solutions for some of the most pressing research problems in the blockchain domain, especially in the context of layer-2 protocols for off-chain transactions and the design of advanced cryptographic techniques like verifiable delay functions, proof-of-X systems with special features, and new MPC/SNARK-friendly primitives.
Candidates must hold a Ph.D. degree in cryptography, IT security, or a related field. Preference will be given to candidates with a strong publication record that includes at least one paper at an IACR conference/workshop or one of the top-4 security conferences. Experience in blockchains and/or smart contracts is a plus. Candidates with an interest to conduct research in one of the following areas are particularly encouraged to apply:
- Applied cryptography (especially design/analysis of symmetric cryptosystems)
- Cryptofinance and cryptoeconomics
- Privacy and anonymity on the Internet
The position is initially offered for 1 year, but an extension by 2 years is possible. The University of Luxembourg offers excellent working conditions and a highly competitive salary. Interested candidates are invited to send their application by email to Prof. Alex Biryukov before October 15, 2023 (early submission is encouraged). The application material should contain a cover letter explaining the candidate's research interests, a CV (incl. photo), a list of publications, scans of diploma certificates, and contact details of 3 references.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Prof. Alex Biryukov (alex.biryukov@uni.lu)
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology; Vienna, Austria
Requirements:
- PhD degree in Computer Science, Cyber Security, or a related field, with a specialization on cryptology
- Profound knowledge in (public key) cryptography, including, e.g., federated computation, long-term and post-quantum secure communication, privacy-enhancing technologies, real-world crypto, zero-knowledge proofs and zkSNARKs
- Strong track record with publications at competitive academic conferences or journals (e.g., Crypto, Eurocrypt, Asiacrypt, TCC, PKC, CCS, S&P, USENIX, ESORICS, ...)
- Experience in the acquisition and execution of national and transnational research projects (e.g., H2020) is a plus
- Good knowledge of a programming language (e.g., C/C++, Rust, Java, Python) and software development is a plus
- Very good written and oral English skills; knowledge of German is not a requirement but willingness to learn German is expected
Please submit your application including CV, cover letter, full list of publications, and contact details of at least 2 references via email to: stephan.krenn[at]ait.ac.at
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Stephan Krenn; stephan.krenn[at]ait.ac.at
University of Birmingham, UK
This is an exciting opportunity to join the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Cyber Security and Privacy on the EPSRC funded project "IOTEE: Securing and analysing trusted execution beyond the CPU", led by Prof Oswald and Prof Ryan.
Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) allow users to run their software in a secure enclave while assuring the integrity and confidentiality of data and applications. However, cloud computing these days relies heavily on peripherals (connected through PCIe) such as GPUs and FPGAs. In this project, together with researchers at the University of Southampton, we will thoroughly evaluate the security guarantees of the new TEE support in the PCIe standard. This could involve the use of formal modelling, as well as researching various software and hardware attacks and countermeasures against them.
We are looking for a person with a PhD in cyber security/computer science/electrical engineering. The candidate must have experience areas such as embedded security, binary analysis, physical attacks such as side-channel analysis and fault injection, and/or formal modelling. This needs to be evidenced through publications in highly ranked conferences/journals in the field. We also welcome experience in writing system level or low-level code in programming languages such as C, C++, or Rust.
The successful candidate will be employed on a full-time, fixed-term contract up to August 2026. Full-time starting salary is normally in the range £33,348 to £43,155. (Some) remote work is possible, depending on the circumstances. The University provides a range of employee benefits, as well as opportunities for career development and training. The project includes substantial funding for conference travel and equipment.
The post-doc will be working in the Centre for Cyber Security and Privacy, which currently has 14 permanent academics as well as 21 postdocs/PhD students.
The application deadline is 12 Oct 2023. Applications have to be made online at: https://edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_6001/job/2681/
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Informal enquiries can be made to David Oswald d.f.oswald@bham.ac.uk.
More information: https://edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_6001/job/2681/