IACR News item: 14 November 2013
Gora Adj, Alfred Menezes, Thomaz Oliveira, Francisco Rodriguez-Henriquez
ePrint ReportIn this paper, we study the effectiveness of the new algorithms combined with a carefully crafted descent strategy for the fields F_{3^{6*1429}} and F_{2^{4*3041}}. The intractability of the discrete logarithm problem in these fields is necessary for the security of pairings derived from supersingular curves with embedding degree 6 and 4 defined, respectively, over F_{3^{1429}} and F_{2^{3041}}; these curves were believed to enjoy a security level of 192 bits against attacks by Coppersmith\'s algorithm. Our analysis shows that these pairings offer security levels of at most 91 and 129 bits, respectively, leading us to conclude that they are dead for pairing-based cryptography.
Additional news items may be found on the IACR news page.