Paper 2022/833 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2022/833 ↗

Stronger Security for Non-Interactive Threshold Signatures: BLS and FROST

Abstract

We give a unified syntax, and a hierarchy of definitions of security of increasing strength, for non-interactive threshold signature schemes. They cover both fully non-interactive schemes (these are ones that have a single-round signing protocol, the canonical example being threshold-BLS) and ones, like FROST, that have a prior round of message-independent pre-processing. The definitions in the upper echelon of our hierarchy ask for security that is well beyond any currently defined, let alone proven to be met by the just-mentioned schemes, yet natural, and important for modern applications like securing digital wallets. We prove that BLS and FROST are better than advertised, meeting some of these stronger definitions. Yet, they fall short of meeting our strongest definition, a gap we fill for FROST via a simple enhancement to the scheme. We also surface subtle differences in the security achieved by variants of FROST.