Paper 2026/1002 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2026/1002 ↗
On weak keys of POKE
Abstract
POKE is an isogeny-based public-key encryption (PKE) scheme proposed by Basso and Maino. Among existing isogeny-based PKE schemes, POKE is known to achieve relatively high performance. However, the security of POKE relies on certain ad hoc assumptions, and its security analysis may not yet be fully comprehensive. In this work, we investigate the security of POKE. We show that POKE admits weak keys that reduce the complexity of certain attacks. In the POKE-2D setting, these weak keys do not significantly affect the overall security, since the probability that such keys occur is sufficiently small. In contrast, we demonstrate that POKE-4D is threatened by the presence of these weak keys. Finally, we suggest novel parameters for POKE-4D in order to mitigate the aforementioned weak-key attack. The resulting parameter sizes are comparable to those of POKE-2D. Consequently, the principal advantages of POKE-4D in terms of performance - namely, a more compact prime size and a more efficient encryption algorithm - are no longer preserved.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
PDF- Category
- Attacks and cryptanalysis
- Publication info
- Preprint.
- History
- 2026-05-21: last updated
- 2026-05-20: published
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2026/1002
- License
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2026/1002,
author = {Tomoki Moriya},
title = {On weak keys of POKE},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2026/1002},
year = {2026},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/1002}
}