Paper 2021/336 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2021/336 ↗

On Closed-Cycle Loops and Applicability of Nonlinear Product Attacks to DES

Nicolas T. Courtois
Matteo Abbondati
Hamy Ratoanina
Marek Grajek
Abstract

In this article we look at the question of the security of Data Encryption Standard (DES) against non-linear polynomial invariant attacks. Is this sort of attack also possible for DES? We present a simple proof of concept attack on DES where a product of 5 polynomials is an invariant for 2 rounds of DES. Furthermore we present numerous additional examples of invariants with higher degrees. We analyse the success probability when the Boolean functions are chosen at random and compare to DES S-boxes. For more complex higher degree attacks the difficulties disappear progressively and up to 100 % of all Boolean functions in 6 variables are potentially vulnerable. A major limitation for all our attacks, is that they work only for a fraction of the key space. However in some cases, this fraction of the key space is very large for the full 16-round DES.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Secret-key cryptography
Publication info
Preprint.
History
2021-03-17: last updated
2021-03-17: published
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2021/336
License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2021/336,
      author = {Nicolas T.  Courtois and Matteo Abbondati and Hamy Ratoanina and Marek Grajek},
      title = {On Closed-Cycle Loops and Applicability of Nonlinear Product Attacks to DES},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2021/336},
      year = {2021},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/336}
}
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