Paper 2006/360 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2006/360 ↗
Target Collisions for MD5 and Colliding X.509 Certificates for Different Identities
Abstract
We have shown how, at a cost of about $2^{52}$ calls to the MD5 compression function, for any two target messages $m_1$ and $m_2$, values $b_1$ and $b_2$ can be constructed such that the concatenated values $m_1\|b_1$ and $m_2\|b_2$ collide under MD5. Although the practical attack potential of this construction of \emph{target collisions} is limited, it is of greater concern than random collisions for MD5. In this note we sketch our construction. To illustrate its practicality, we present two MD5 based X.509 certificates with identical signatures but different public keys \emph{and} different Distinguished Name fields, whereas our previous construction of colliding X.509 certificates required identical name fields. We speculate on other possibilities for abusing target collisions.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
PDF- Category
- Applications
- Publication info
- Preprint.
- History
- 2007-03-05: last updated
- 2006-10-25: published
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2006/360
- License
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2006/360,
author = {Marc Stevens and Arjen Lenstra and Benne de Weger},
title = {Target Collisions for MD5 and Colliding X.509 Certificates for Different Identities},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2006/360},
year = {2006},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2006/360}
}