Paper 2025/120 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2025/120 ↗

Module Learning with Errors with Truncated Matrices

Abstract

The Module Learning with Errors ($\mathsf{MLWE}$) problem is one of the most commonly used hardness assumption in lattice-based cryptography. In its standard version, a matrix $\mathbf{A}$ is sampled uniformly at random over a quotient ring $R_q$, as well as noisy linear equations in the form of $\mathbf{A} \mathbf{s}+ \mathbf{e} \bmod q$, where $\mathbf{s}$ is the secret, sampled uniformly at random over $R_q$, and $\mathbf{e}$ is the error, coming from a Gaussian distribution. Many previous works have focused on variants of $\mathsf{MLWE}$, where the secret and/or the error are sampled from different distributions. Only few works have focused on different distributions for the matrix $\mathbf{A}$. One variant proposed in the literature is to consider matrix distributions where the low-order bits of a uniform $\mathbf{A}$ are deleted. This seems a natural approach in order to save in bandwidth. We call it truncated $\mathsf{MLWE}$. In this work, we show that the hardness of standard $\mathsf{MLWE}$ implies the hardness of truncated $\mathsf{MLWE}$, both for search and decision versions. Prior works only covered the search variant and relied on the (module) $\mathsf{NTRU}$ assumption, limitations which we are able to overcome. Overall, we provide two approaches, offering different advantages. The first uses a general Rényi divergence argument, applicable to a wide range of secret/error distributions, but which only works for the search variants of (truncated) $\mathsf{MLWE}$. The second applies to the decision versions, by going through an intermediate variant of $\mathsf{MLWE}$, where additional hints on the secret are given to the adversary. However, the reduction makes use of discrete Gaussian distributions.