Abstract. Zero-correlation linear attack is a new method for cryptanalysis of block ciphers developed by . In this paper we adapt the matrix method to find zerocorrelation linear approximations. Then we present several zero-correlation linear approximations for 14 rounds of LBlock and describe a cryptanalysis for 22 rounds of the reduced LBlock. After biclique attacks on LBlock revealed weaknesses in its key schedule, its designers presented a new version of the cipher with a revised key schedule. The attack presented in this paper is applicable to LBlock structure independently of the key scheduling. The attack needs distinct known plaintexts which is a more realistic attack model in comparison with impossible differential cryptanalysis which uses chosen plaintext pairs. Moreover, we performed simulations on a small variant LBlock and present the first experimental results on the theoretical model of the multidimensional zero-correlation linear cryptanalysis method.
LowMC is a family of block ciphers designed for a low multiplicative complexity. The specification allows a large variety of instantiations, differing in block size, key size, number of S-boxes applied per round and allowed data complexity. The number of rounds deemed secure is determined by evaluating a number of attack vectors and taking the number of rounds still secure against the best of these. In this paper, we demonstrate that the attacks considered by the designers of LowMC in the version 2 of the round-formular were not sufficient to fend off all possible attacks. In the case of instantiations of LowMC with one of the most useful settings, namely with few applied S-boxes per round and only low allowable data complexities, efficient attacks based on difference enumeration techniques can be constructed. We show that it is most effective to consider tuples of differences instead of simple differences, both to increase the range of the distinguishers and to enable key recovery attacks. All applications for LowMC we are aware of, including signature schemes like Picnic and more recent (ring/group) signature schemes have used version 3 of the roundformular for LowMC, which takes our attack already into account.
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