Paper 2023/339

An Analysis of the Post Quantum and Classical Security of 4x4 and 16x4 S-Boxes and Their Implementations in Simplified-AES

Christopher Dunne, Capitol Technology University
Abstract

Grover’s algorithm is a quantum searching algorithm that poses a threat to symmetric cryptography. Due to their smaller key sizes, lightweight cryptographic algorithms such as Simplified-AES face a much more immediate threat from Grover’s algorithm than traditional cryptographic algorithms. By analyzing different S-boxes, it was discovered that the S-box 946C753AE8FBD012 may be more quantum resistant than the S-box that Simplified-AES uses, 94ABD1856203CEF7. In addition to this, 16x4 S-boxes (or 4 4x4 S-boxes) showed to be significantly more quantum secure than 4x4 S-boxes. This is because the number of gates needed to model a $2^n$x4 S-box increases at an exponential rate. It was also found that this property extends to $2^n$x8 S-boxes, implying the existence of a more quantum secure 8x8 S-box that AES could use. However, an increase in quantum security does not equate to an increase in classical security, as some of the least quantum secure S-boxes analyzed displayed some of the best classical security. Finally, an alteration of Simplified-AES that used a 16x4 S-box was found that displayed better classical and quantum security than Simplified-AES and did not require an increase in key size.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Secret-key cryptography
Publication info
Preprint.
Keywords
Grover's Algorithm16x4 S-boxSimplified-AESQuantum Security
Contact author(s)
cdunne @ captechu edu
History
2023-03-08: approved
2023-03-07: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2023/339
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2023/339,
      author = {Christopher Dunne},
      title = {An Analysis of the Post Quantum and Classical Security of 4x4 and 16x4 S-Boxes and Their Implementations in Simplified-{AES}},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2023/339},
      year = {2023},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/339}
}
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