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High order differential attacks on stream ciphers

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Abstract

Differential cryptanalysis is probably the most popular tool for chosen plaintext attacks on block ciphers. It also applies to chosen IV attacks on stream ciphers, but here, high order differential attacks have been surprisingly successful, namely on NLFSR-based constructions. Most approaches have been developed in terms of the algebraic normal form of Boolean functions. Prominent examples are the d-monomial test, cube attacks, and cube testers. We review the various techniques and translate them into the terminology of high order derivatives introduced by Lai. The unified view points out similarities between seemingly different approaches and naturally suggests generalizations and refinements such as conditional differential cryptanalysis.

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Notes

  1. This does not hold for the dynamic cube attack [7] which is quite different from the original cube attack considered here.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Hasler Foundation www.haslerfoundation.ch under project number 08065.

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  1. ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Simon Knellwolf

  2. FHNW, Windisch, Switzerland

    Simon Knellwolf & Willi Meier

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  1. Simon Knellwolf
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  2. Willi Meier
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Correspondence to Willi Meier.

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Knellwolf, S., Meier, W. High order differential attacks on stream ciphers. Cryptogr. Commun. 4, 203–215 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12095-012-0071-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12095-012-0071-9

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