International Association for Cryptologic Research

International Association
for Cryptologic Research

CryptoDB

Wonseok Choi

Publications

Year
Venue
Title
2024
TOSC
Building PRFs from TPRPs: Beyond the Block and the Tweak Length Bounds
Wonseok Choi Jooyoung Lee Yeongmin Lee
A secure n-bit tweakable block cipher (TBC) using t-bit tweaks can be modeled as a tweakable uniform random permutation, where each tweak defines an independent random n-bit permutation. When an input to this tweakable permutation is fixed, it can be viewed as a perfectly secure t-bit random function. On the other hand, when a tweak is fixed, it can be viewed as a perfectly secure n-bit random permutation, and it is well known that the sum of two random permutations is pseudorandom up to 2n queries.A natural question is whether one can construct a pseudorandom function (PRF) beyond the block and the tweak length bounds using a small number of calls to the underlying tweakable permutations. A straightforward way of constructing a PRF from tweakable permutations is to xor the outputs from two tweakable permutations with c bits of the input to each permutation fixed. Using the multi-user security of the sum of two permutations, one can prove that the (t + n − c)-to-n bit PRF is secure up to 2n+c queries.In this paper, we propose a family of PRF constructions based on tweakable permutations, dubbed XoTPc, achieving stronger security than the straightforward construction. XoTPc is parameterized by c, giving a (t + n − c)-to-n bit PRF. When t < 3n and c = t/3 , XoTPt/3 becomes an (n + 2t/3 )-to-n bit pseudorandom function, which is secure up to 2n+2t/3 queries. It provides security beyond the block and the tweak length bounds, making two calls to the underlying tweakable permutations. In order to prove the security of XoTPc, we extend Mirror theory to q ≫ 2n, where q is the number of equations. From a practical point of view, our construction can be used to construct TBC-based MAC finalization functions and CTR-type encryption modes with stronger provable security compared to existing schemes.
2023
CRYPTO
Improved Multi-User Security Using the Squared-Ratio Method
Yu Long Chen Wonseok Choi Changmin Lee
Proving security bounds in contexts with a large number of users is one of the central problems in symmetric-key cryptography today. This paper introduces a new method for information-theoretic multi-user security proofs, called ``the Squared-Ratio method''. At its core, the method requires the expectation of the square of the ratio of observing the so-called good transcripts (from Patarin's H-coefficient technique) in the real and the ideal world. Central to the method is the observation that for information-theoretic adversaries, the KL-divergence for the multi-user security bound can be written as a summation of the KL-divergence of every single user. We showcase the Squared-Ratio method on three examples: the Xor of two Permutations by Bellare et al. (EUROCRYPT '98) and Hall et al. (CRYPTO '98), the Encrypted Davies-Mayer by Cogliati and Seurin (CRYPTO '16), and the two permutation variant of the nEHtM MAC algorithm by Dutta et al. (EUROCRYPT '19). With this new tool, we provide improved bounds for the multi-user security of these constructions. Our approach is modular in the sense that the multi-user security can be obtained directly from single-user results.
2022
ASIACRYPT
Multi-User Security of the Sum of Truncated Random Permutations 📺
For several decades, constructing pseudorandom functions from pseudorandom permutations, so-called Luby-Rackoff backward construction, has been a popular cryptographic problem. Two methods are well-known and comprehensively studied for this problem: summing two random permutations and truncating partial bits of the output from a random permutation. In this paper, by combining both summation and truncation, we propose new Luby-Rackoff backward constructions, dubbed SaT1 and SaT2, respectively. SaT2 is obtained by partially truncating output bits from the sum of two independent random permutations, and SaT1 is its single permutation-based variant using domain separation. The distinguishing advantage against SaT1 and SaT2 is upper bounded by O(\sqrt{\mu q_max}/2^{n-0.5m}) and O({\sqrt{\mu}q_max^1.5}/2^{2n-0.5m}), respectively, in the multi-user setting, where n is the size of the underlying permutation, m is the output size of the construction, \mu is the number of users, and q_max is the maximum number of queries per user. We also prove the distinguishing advantage against a variant of XORP[3]~(studied by Bhattacharya and Nandi at Asiacrypt 2021) using independent permutations, dubbed SoP3-2, is upper bounded by O(\sqrt{\mu} q_max^2}/2^{2.5n})$. In the multi-user setting with \mu = O(2^{n-m}), a truncated random permutation provides only the birthday bound security, while SaT1 and SaT2 are fully secure, i.e., allowing O(2^n) queries for each user. It is the same security level as XORP[3] using three permutation calls, while SaT1 and SaT2 need only two permutation calls.
2021
ASIACRYPT
Toward a Fully Secure Authenticated Encryption Scheme From a Pseudorandom Permutation 📺
In this paper, we propose a new block cipher-based authenticated encryption scheme, dubbed the Synthetic Counter with Masking (SCM) mode. SCM follows the NSIV paradigm proposed by Peyrin and Seurin (CRYPTO 2016), where a keyed hash function accepts a nonce N with associated data and a message, yielding an authentication tag T, and then the message is encrypted by a counter-like mode using both T and N. Here we move one step further by encrypting nonces; in the encryption part, the inputs to the block cipher are determined by T, counters, and an encrypted nonce, and all its outputs are also masked by an (additional) encrypted nonce, yielding keystream blocks. As a result, we obtain, for the first time, a block cipher-based authenticated encryption scheme of rate 1/2 that provides n-bit security with respect to the query complexity (ignoring the influence of message length) in the nonce-respecting setting, and at the same time guarantees graceful security degradation in the faulty nonce model, when the underlying n-bit block cipher is modeled as a secure pseudorandom permutation. Seen as a slight variant of GCM-SIV, SCM is also parallelizable and inverse-free, and its performance is still comparable to GCM-SIV.
2020
ASIACRYPT
Improved Security Analysis for Nonce-based Enhanced Hash-then-Mask MACs 📺
In this paper, we prove that the nonce-based enhanced hash-then-mask MAC (nEHtM) is secure up to 2^{3n/4} MAC queries and 2^n verification queries (ignoring logarithmic factors) as long as the number of faulty queries \mu is below 2^{3n/8}, significantly improving the previous bound by Dutta et al. Even when \mu goes beyond 2^{3n/8}, nEHtM enjoys graceful degradation of security. The second result is to prove the security of PRF-based nEHtM; when nEHtM is based on an n-to-s bit random function for a fixed size s such that 1 <= s <= n, it is proved to be secure up to any number of MAC queries and 2^s verification queries, if (1) s = n and \mu < 2^{n/2} or (2) n/2 < s < 2^{n-s} and \mu < max{2^{s/2}, 2^{n-s}}, or (3) s <= n/2 and \mu < 2^{n/2}. This result leads to the security proof of truncated nEHtM that returns only s bits of the original tag since a truncated permutation can be seen as a pseudorandom function. In particular, when s <= 2n/3, the truncated nEHtM is secure up to 2^{n - s/2} MAC queries and 2^s verification queries as long as \mu < min{2^{n/2}, 2^{n-s}}. For example, when s = n/2 (resp. s = n/4), the truncated nEHtM is secure up to 2^{3n/4} (resp. 2^{7n/8}) MAC queries. So truncation might provide better provable security than the original nEHtM with respect to the number of MAC queries.
2020
TOSC
Highly Secure Nonce-based MACs from the Sum of Tweakable Block Ciphers 📺
Tweakable block ciphers (TBCs) have proven highly useful to boost the security guarantees of authentication schemes. In 2017, Cogliati et al. proposed two MACs combining TBC and universal hash functions: a nonce-based MAC called NaT and a deterministic MAC called HaT. While both constructions provide high security, their properties are complementary: NaT is almost fully secure when nonces are respected (i.e., n-bit security, where n is the block size of the TBC, and no security degradation in terms of the number of MAC queries when nonces are unique), while its security degrades gracefully to the birthday bound (n/2 bits) when nonces are misused. HaT has n-bit security and can be used naturally as a nonce-based MAC when a message contains a nonce. However, it does not have full security even if nonces are unique.This work proposes two highly secure and efficient MACs to fill the gap: NaT2 and eHaT. Both provide (almost) full security if nonces are unique and more than n/2-bit security when nonces can repeat. Based on NaT and HaT, we aim at achieving these properties in a modular approach. Our first proposal, Nonce-as-Tweak2 (NaT2), is the sum of two NaT instances. Our second proposal, enhanced Hash-as-Tweak (eHaT), extends HaT by adding the output of an additional nonce-depending call to the TBC and prepending nonce to the message. Despite the conceptual simplicity, the security proofs are involved. For NaT2 in particular, we rely on the recent proof framework for Double-block Hash-then-Sum by Kim et al. from Eurocrypt 2020.
2019
ASIACRYPT
Indifferentiability of Truncated Random Permutations
One of natural ways of constructing a pseudorandom function from a pseudorandom permutation is to simply truncate the output of the permutation. When n is the permutation size and m is the number of truncated bits, the resulting construction is known to be indistinguishable from a random function up to $$2^{{n+m}\over 2}$$ queries, which is tight.In this paper, we study the indifferentiability of a truncated random permutation where a fixed prefix is prepended to the inputs. We prove that this construction is (regularly) indifferentiable from a public random function up to $$\min \{2^{{n+m}\over 3}, 2^{m}, 2^\ell \}$$ queries, while it is publicly indifferentiable up to $$\min \{ \max \{2^{{n+m}\over 3}, 2^{n \over 2}\}, 2^\ell \}$$ queries, where $$\ell $$ is the size of the fixed prefix. Furthermore, the regular indifferentiability bound is proved to be tight when $$m+\ell \ll n$$.Our results significantly improve upon the previous bound of $$\min \{ 2^{m \over 2}, 2^\ell \}$$ given by Dodis et al. (FSE 2009), allowing us to construct, for instance, an $$\frac{n}{2}$$-to-$$\frac{n}{2}$$ bit random function that makes a single call to an n-bit permutation, achieving $$\frac{n}{2}$$-bit security.