Analysis and Protection of Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms
Final Report Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) represents the next phase of the evolution of the Internet towards a network that integrates the physical world into the virtual world. In the near future, the vast majority of devices connected to the Internet will not be classical computers like PCs, laptops, or smart phones, but miniature sensor nodes, actuators, and various other kinds of ßmart”devices with computation and communication capabilities. In order to secure those devices, new cryptographic algorithms are developed, so called lightweight cryptography. The mission of the APLICA project was to contribute to the evaluation of the more than 50 candidate algorithms submitted to the NIST by analyzing their theoretical and practical security properties. More concretely, APLICA planned to contribute to the development of new cryptanalytic techniques (including new software tools for cryptanalysis) that can be applied to lightweight authenticated encryption algorithms and hash functions, and to the design and implementation of new countermeasures against side-channel attacks, in particular differential power analysis, that are suitable for resource-constrained IoT devices. Both topics have the potential to create significant real-world impact since the NIST-standardized algorithms will likely get deployed in billions of devices. This project was a joint project with the University of Luxembourg, with Prof. Dr. Alex Biryukov as the main cooperation partner. The project was split into two main work packages, one dealing with cryptanalsyis and developing new tools and techniques therefore and a second one dealing with the implementation aspects of those algorithms. The Ruhr University Bochum, and therefore the work funded by the DFG was centered in the former. Even so finally none of our submissions was chosen as a standard, NIST choose the cipher ASCON, an excellent choice, the project was a success. The projected resulted in a significantly better understanding of dedicated parts of the cryptographic primitives, leading to several tier one publications. Being so successful, the results of this project in parts triggered the successful ERC grant application of Gregor Leander, focusing in depth on improved security arguments for symmetric cryptographic primitives.
Publications
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Generic Framework for Key-Guessing Improvements. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 453-483. Springer International Publishing.
Broll, Marek; Canale, Federico; Flórez-Gutiérrez, Antonio; Leander, Gregor & Naya-Plasencia, María
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Strong and Tight Security Guarantees Against Integral Distinguishers. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 362-391. Springer International Publishing.
Hebborn, Phil; Lambin, Baptiste; Leander, Gregor & Todo, Yosuke
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Mathematical aspects of division property. Cryptography and Communications, 15(4), 731-774.
Hebborn, Phil; Leander, Gregor & Udovenko, Aleksei
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On Perfect Linear Approximations and Differentials over Two-Round SPNs. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 209-239. Springer Nature Switzerland.
Beierle, Christof; Felke, Patrick; Leander, Gregor; Neumann, Patrick & Stennes, Lukas
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Pitfalls and Shortcomings for Decompositions and Alignment. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 318-347. Springer Nature Switzerland.
Lambin, Baptiste; Leander, Gregor & Neumann, Patrick
