Paper 2023/1073
The Reality of Backdoored S-Boxes - An Eye Opener
Abstract
The analysis of real-life incidents has revealed that state-level efforts are made to camouflage the intentional flaws in the mathematical layer of an S-Box to exploit the information-theoretic properties, i.e., Kuznyechik. To extract and investigate the common features in the backdoored S-Box(es), this research thoroughly examines them from the perspective of 24 cryptanalytic attack vectors available in the open literature. We have debunked the earlier claims by the backdoor engineers that their designs are stealthy against statistical distinguishers. A backdoored architecture fulfils the notions of randomness but lacks the strength to resist sophisticated cryptanalytic attacks. Our analysis has revealed that during the backdoor insertion phase, a malicious designer compromises vital cryptographic properties, prominently the algebraic degree, differential trails, avalanche characteristics and leaving the open ground for hybrid attacks. It is observed that these mappings attain the upper bound of BCT, FBCT and DLCT, thus paving the way for hybrid attacks with high probability.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
-
PDF
- Category
- Foundations
- Publication info
- Preprint.
- Keywords
- BackdoorsSubspacesCryptanalysisDLCTBCTFBCT
- Contact author(s)
-
sfahd phdismcs @ student nust edu pk
mehreenafzal @ mcs edu pk
waseem iqbal @ mcs edu pk
dawoodshah @ math qau edu pk
ijazkhalid @ math qau edu pk - History
- 2023-07-11: approved
- 2023-07-10: received
- See all versions
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2023/1073
- License
-
CC BY
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2023/1073,
author = {Shah Fahd and Mehreen Afzal and Waseem Iqbal and Dawood Shah and Ijaz Khalid},
title = {The Reality of Backdoored S-Boxes - An Eye Opener},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2023/1073},
year = {2023},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1073}
}
