Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2007/048
A Security Analysis of the NIST SP 800-90 Elliptic Curve Random Number Generator
Daniel R. L. Brown and Kristian Gjøsteen
Abstract: An elliptic curve random number generator (ECRNG) has been approved
in a NIST standards and proposed for ANSI and SECG draft standards.
This paper proves that, if three
conjectures are true, then the ECRNG is secure. The three
conjectures are hardness of the elliptic curve decisional
Diffie-Hellman problem and the hardness of two newer problems, the
x-logarithm problem and the truncated point problem.
The x-logarithm problem is shown to be hard if the decisional
Diffie-Hellman problem is hard, although the reduction is not tight.
The truncated point problem is shown to be solvable when the minimum
amount of bits allowed in NIST standards are truncated, thereby
making it insecure for applications such as stream
ciphers. Nevertheless, it is argued that for nonce and key
generation this distinguishability is harmless.
Category / Keywords: secret-key cryptography / Random number generation, Elliptic curve cryptography
Date: received 30 Jan 2007, last revised 15 Feb 2007
Contact author: kristian gjosteen at math ntnu no
Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation
Note: This paper subsumes eprint:2006/117.
Version: 20070219:214623 (All versions of this report)
Short URL: ia.cr/2007/048
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