International Association
for Cryptologic Research

<p>Restricted syndrome decoding problems (R-SDP and R-SDP($G$)) provide an interesting basis for post-quantum cryptography. Indeed, they feature in CROSS, a submission in the ongoing process for standardizing post-quantum signatures.</p><p>This work improves our understanding of the security of both problems. Firstly, we propose and implement a novel collision attack on R-SDP($G$) that provides the best attack under realistic restrictions on memory. Secondly, we derive precise complexity estimates for algebraic attacks on R-SDP that are shown to be accurate by our experiments. We note that neither of these improvements threatens the updated parameters of CROSS. </p>

MAYO is a popular high-calorie condiment as well as an auspicious candidate in the ongoing NIST competition for additional post-quantum signature schemes achieving competitive signature and public key sizes. In this work, we present high-speed implementations of MAYO using the AVX2 and Armv7E-M instruction sets targeting recent x86 platforms and the Arm Cortex-M4. Moreover, the main contribution of our work is showing that MAYO can be even faster when switching from a bitsliced representation of keys to a nibble-sliced representation. While the bitsliced representation was primarily motivated by faster arithmetic on microcontrollers, we show that it is not necessary for achieving high performance on Cortex-M4. On Cortex-M4, we instead propose to implement the large matrix multiplications of MAYO using the Method of the Four Russians (M4R), which allows us to achieve better performance than when using the bitsliced approach. This results in up to 21% faster signing. For AVX2, the change in representation allows us to implement the arithmetic much faster using shuffle instructions. Signing takes up to 3.2x fewer cycles and key generation and verification enjoy similar speedups. This shows that MAYO is competitive with lattice-based signature schemes on x86 CPUs, and a factor of 2-6 slower than lattice-based signature schemes on Cortex-M4 (which can still be considered competitive).

The use of MPC-in-the-Head (MPCitH)-based zero-knowledge proofs of knowledge (ZKPoK) to prove knowledge of a preimage of a one-way function (OWF) is a popular approach towards constructing efficient post-quantum digital signatures. Starting with the Picnic signature scheme, many optimized MPCitH signatures using a variety of (candidate) OWFs have been proposed. Recently, Baum et al. (CRYPTO 2023) showed a fundamental improvement to MPCitH, called VOLE-in-the-Head (VOLEitH), which can generically reduce the signature size by at least a factor of two without decreasing computational performance or introducing new assumptions. Based on this, they designed the FAEST signature which uses AES as the underlying OWF. However, in comparison to MPCitH, the behavior of VOLEitH when using other OWFs is still unexplored. In this work, we improve a crucial building block of the VOLEitH and MPCitH approaches, the so-called all-but-one vector commitment, thus decreasing the signature size of VOLEitH and MPCitH signature schemes. Moreover, by introducing a small Proof of Work into the signing procedure, we can improve the parameters of VOLEitH (further decreasing signature size) \emph{without} compromising the computational performance of the scheme. Based on these optimizations, we propose three VOLEitH signature schemes FAESTER, KuMQuat, and MandaRain based on AES, MQ, and Rain, respectively. We carefully explore the parameter space for these schemes and implement each, showcasing their performance with benchmarks. Our experiments show that these three signature schemes outperform MPCitH-based competitors that use comparable OWFs, in terms of both signature size and signing/verification time.

At Eurocrypt`22 Tang, Duong, Joux, Plantard, Qiao, and Susilo proposed a digital signature algorithm based on the hardness of the isomorphism problem of alternating trilinear forms. They propose three concrete parameters in dimensions 9,10, and 11 respectively. We give new heuristic algorithms that solve this problem more efficiently. With our new algorithms, the first parameter set can be broken in less than a day on a laptop. For the second parameter set, we show there is a $2^{-17}$ fraction of the public keys that can also be broken in less than a day. We do not break the third parameter set in practice, but we claim it falls short of the target security level of 128 bits.

The most compact quantum-safe proof systems for large circuits are PCP-type systems such as Ligero, Aurora, and Shockwave, that only use weak cryptographic assumptions, namely hash functions modeled as random oracles. One would expect that by allowing for stronger assumptions, such as the hardness of Module-SIS, it should be possible to design more compact proof systems. But alas, despite considerable progress in lattice-based proofs, no such proof system was known so far. We rectify this situation by introducing a Lattice-Based Recursively Amortized Demonstration Of R1CS (LaBRADOR), with more compact proof sizes than known hash-based proof systems. At the 128 bits security level, LaBRADOR proves knowledge of a solution for an R1CS mod 2^64+1 with 2^20 constraints, with a proof size of only 58 KB, an order of magnitude more compact than previous quantum-safe proofs.

Two multivariate digital signature schemes, Rainbow and GeMSS, made it into the third round of the NIST PQC competition. However, neither made its way to being a standard due to devastating attacks (in one case by Beullens, the other by Tao, Petzoldt, and Ding). How should multivariate cryptography recover from this blow? We propose that, rather than trying to fix Rainbow and HFEv- by introducing countermeasures, the better approach is to return to the classical Oil and Vinegar scheme. We show that, if parametrized appropriately, Oil and Vinegar still provides competitive performance compared to the new NIST standards by most measures (except for key size). At NIST security level 1, this results in either 128-byte signatures with 44 kB public keys or 96-byte signatures with 67 kB public keys. We revamp the state-of-the-art of Oil and Vinegar implementations for the Intel/AMD AVX2, the Arm Cortex-M4 microprocessor, the Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA, and the Armv8-A microarchitecture with the Neon vector instructions set.

This work introduces new key recovery attacks against the Rainbow signature scheme, which is one of the three finalist signature schemes still in the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography standardization project. The new attacks dramatically outperform previously known attacks for all the parameter sets submitted to NIST and make a key-recovery practical for the SL 1 parameters. Concretely, given a Rainbow public key for the SL 1 parameters of the second-round submission, our attack returns the corresponding public key after on average 53 hours (one weekend) of computation time on a standard laptop.

We construct an efficient dynamic group signature (or more generally an accountable ring signature) from isogeny and lattice assumptions. Our group signature is based on a simple generic construction that can be instantiated by cryptographically hard group actions such as the CSIDH group action or an MLWE-based group action. The signature is of size $O(¥log N)$, where $N$ is the number of users in the group. Our idea builds on the recent efficient OR-proof by Beullens, Katsumata, and Pintore (Asiacrypt'20), where we efficiently add a proof of valid ciphertext to their OR-proof and further show that the resulting non-interactive zero-knowledge proof system is ¥emph{online extractable}. Our group signatures satisfy more ideal security properties compared to previously known constructions, while simultaneously having an attractive signature size. The signature size of our isogeny-based construction is an order of magnitude smaller than all previously known post-quantum group signatures (e.g., 6.6 KB for 64 members). In comparison, our lattice-based construction has a larger signature size (e.g., either 126 KB or 89 KB for 64 members depending on the satisfied security property). However, since the $O(¥cdot)$-notation hides a very small constant factor, it remains small even for very large group sizes, say $2^{20}$.

Despite the growing demand for software implementations of ECDSA secure against attackers with full control of the execution environment, scientific literature on ECDSA white-box design is scarce. The CHES 2021 WhibOx contest was thus held to assess the state-of-the-art and encourage relevant practical research, inviting developers to submit ECDSA white-box implementations and attackers to break the corresponding submissions.In this work, attackers (team TheRealIdefix) and designers (team zerokey) join to describe several attack techniques and designs used during this contest. We explain the methods used by the team TheRealIdefix, which broke the most challenges, and we show the efficiency of each of these methods against all the submitted implementations. Moreover, we describe the designs of the two winning challenges submitted by the team zerokey; these designs represent the ECDSA signature algorithm by a sequence of systems of low-degree equations, which are obfuscated with affine encodings and extra random variables and equations.The WhibOx contest has shown that securing ECDSA in the white-box model is an open and challenging problem, as no implementation survived more than two days. In this context, our designs provide a starting methodology for further research, and our attacks highlight the weak points future work should address.

The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we simplify the description of the Unbalanced Oil and Vinegar scheme (UOV) and its Rainbow variant, which makes it easier to understand the scheme and the existing attacks. We hope that this will make UOV and Rainbow more approachable for cryptanalysts. Secondly, we give two new attacks against the UOV and Rainbow signature schemes; the intersection attack that applies to both UOV and Rainbow and the rectangular MinRank attack that applies only to Rainbow. Our attacks are more powerful than existing attacks. In particular, we estimate that compared to previously known attacks, our new attacks reduce the cost of a key recovery by a factor of 2^17, 2^53, and 2^73 for the parameter sets submitted to the second round of the NIST PQC standardization project targeting the security levels I, III, and V respectively. For the third round parameters, the cost is reduced by a factor of 2^20, 2^40, and 2^55 respectively. This means all these parameter sets fall short of the security requirements set out by NIST.

This work presents sigma protocols to prove knowledge of: - a solution to a system of quadratic polynomials, - a solution to an instance of the Permuted Kernel Problem and - a witness for a variety of lattice statements (including SIS). Our sigma protocols have soundness error 1/q', where q' is any number bounded by the size of the underlying finite field. This is much better than existing proofs, which have soundness error 2/3 or (q'+1)/2q'. The prover and verifier time our proofs are O(q'). We achieve this by first constructing so-called sigma protocols with helper, which are sigma protocols where the prover and the verifier are assisted by a trusted third party, and then eliminating the helper from the proof with a "cut-and-choose" protocol. We apply the Fiat-Shamir transform to obtain signature schemes with security proof in the QROM. We show that the resulting signature schemes, which we call the "MUltivariate quaDratic FIat-SHamir" scheme (MUDFISH) and the "ShUffled Solution to Homogeneous linear SYstem FIat-SHamir" scheme (SUSHSYFISH), are more efficient than existing signatures based on the MQ problem and the Permuted Kernel Problem. Our proof system can be used to improve the efficiency of applications relying on (generalizations of) Stern's protocol. We show that the proof size of our SIS proof is smaller than that of Stern's protocol by an order of magnitude and that our proof is more efficient than existing post-quantum secure SIS proofs.

The Legendre PRF relies on the conjectured pseudorandomness properties of the Legendre symbol with a hidden shift. Originally proposed as a PRG by Damgård at CRYPTO 1988, it was recently suggested as an efficient PRF for multiparty computation purposes by Grassi et al. at CCS 2016. Moreover, the Legendre PRF is being considered for usage in the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain.This paper improves previous attacks on the Legendre PRF and its higher-degree variant due to Khovratovich by reducing the time complexity from O(&lt; (p log p/M) to O(p log2 p/M2) Legendre symbol evaluations when M ≤ 4√ p log2 p queries are available. The practical relevance of our improved attack is demonstrated by breaking three concrete instances of the PRF proposed by the Ethereum foundation. Furthermore, we generalize our attack in a nontrivial way to the higher-degree variant of the Legendre PRF and we point out a large class of weak keys for this construction. Lastly, we provide the first security analysis of two additional generalizations of the Legendre PRF originally proposed by Damgård in the PRG setting, namely the Jacobi PRF and the power residue PRF.

We construct efficient ring signatures (RS) from isogeny and lattice assumptions. Our ring signatures are based on a logarithmic OR proof for group actions. We instantiate this group action by either the CSIDH group action or an MLWE-based group action to obtain our isogeny-based or lattice-based RS scheme, respectively. Even though the OR proof has a binary challenge space and therefore requires a number of repetitions which is linear in the security parameter, the sizes of our ring signatures are small and scale better with the ring size N than previously known post-quantum ring signatures. We also construct linkable ring signatures (LRS) that are almost as efficient as the non-linkable variants. The isogeny-based scheme produces signatures whose size is an order of magnitude smaller than all previously known logarithmic post-quantum ring signatures, but it is relatively slow (e.g. 5.5 KB signatures and 79 s signing time for rings with 8 members). In comparison, the lattice-based construction is much faster, but has larger signatures (e.g. 30 KB signatures and 90 ms signing time for the same ring size). For small ring sizes our lattice-based ring signatures are slightly larger than state-of-the- art schemes, but they are smaller for ring sizes larger than N approximately 1024.

This paper shows how to obfuscate several simple functionalities from a new Knowledge of OrthogonALity Assumption (KOALA) in cyclic groups which is shown to hold in the Generic Group Model. Specifically, we give simpler and stronger security proofs for obfuscation schemes for point functions, general-output point functions and pattern matching with wildcards. We also revisit the work of Bishop et al. (CRYPTO 2018) on obfuscating the pattern matching with wildcards functionality. We improve upon the construction and the analysis in several ways:attacks and stronger guarantees: We show that the construction achieves virtual black-box security for a simulator that runs in time roughly $$2^{n/2}$$, as well as distributional security for larger classes of distributions. We give attacks that show that our results are tight.weaker assumptions: We prove security under KOALA.better efficiency: We also provide a construction that outputs $$n+1$$ instead of 2n group elements. We obtain our results by first obfuscating a simpler “big subset functionality”, for which we establish full virtual black-box security; this yields a simpler and more modular analysis for pattern matching. Finally, we extend our distinguishing attacks to a large class of simple linear-in-the-exponent schemes.

In this paper we report on a new record class group computation of an imaginary quadratic field having 154-digit discriminant, surpassing the previous record of 130 digits. This class group is central to the CSIDH-512 isogeny based cryptosystem, and knowing the class group structure and relation lattice implies efficient uniform sampling and a canonical representation of its elements. Both operations were impossible before and allow us to instantiate an isogeny based signature scheme first sketched by Stolbunov. We further optimize the scheme using multiple public keys and Merkle trees, following an idea by De Feo and Galbraith. We also show that including quadratic twists allows to cut the public key size in half for free. Optimizing for signature size, our implementation takes 390 ms to sign/verify and results in signatures of 263 bytes, at the expense of a large public key. This is 300 times faster and over 3 times smaller than an optimized version of SeaSign for the same parameter set. Optimizing for public key and signature size combined, results in a total size of 1468 bytes, which is smaller than any other post-quantum signature scheme at the 128-bit security level.

Recently, NIST started the process of standardizing quantum-resistant public-key cryptographic algorithms. WalnutDSA, the subject of this paper, is one of the 20 proposed signature schemes that are being considered for standardization. Walnut relies on a one-way function called E-Multiplication, which has a rich algebraic structure. This paper shows that this structure can be exploited to launch several practical attacks against the Walnut cryptosystem. The attacks work very well in practice; it is possible to forge signatures and compute equivalent secret keys for the 128-bit and 256-bit security parameters submitted to NIST in less than a second and in less than a minute respectively.