Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2007/070

Two Linear Distinguishing Attacks on VMPC and RC4A and Weakness of RC4 Family of Stream Ciphers (Corrected)

Alexander Maximov

Abstract: At FSE 2004 two new stream ciphers VMPC and RC4A have been proposed. VMPC is a generalisation of the stream cipher RC4, whereas RC4A is an attempt to increase the security of RC4 by introducing an additional permuter in the design. This paper is the first work presenting attacks on VMPC and RC4A. We propose two linear distinguishing attacks, one on VMPC of complexity $2^{39.97}$, and one on RC4A of complexity $2^{58}$. We investigate the RC4 family of stream ciphers and show some theoretical weaknesses of such constructions.

Category / Keywords: secret-key cryptography / RC4, VMPC, RC4A, cryptanalysis, linear distinguishing attack

Publication Info: This is a corrected paper of the similar one published at FSE-2005

Date: received 22 Feb 2007

Contact author: movax at it lth se

Available format(s): Postscript (PS) | Compressed Postscript (PS.GZ) | PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20070228:111214 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2007/070