A Note on the CLRW2 Tweakable Block Cipher Construction

In this note, we describe an error in the proof for CLRW2 given by Landecker et al. in their paper at CRYPTO 2012 on the beyond-birthday-bound security for tweakable block ciphers. We are able to resolve the issue, give a new bound for the security of CLRW2, and identify a potential limitation of this proof technique when looking to extend the scheme to provide asymptotic security

Optimally Secure Tweakable Blockciphers

We consider the generic design of a tweakable blockcipher from one or more evaluations of a classical blockcipher, in such a way that all input and output wires are of size n bits. As a first contribution, we show that any tweakable blockcipher with one primitive call and arbitrary linear pre- and postprocessing functions can be distinguished from an ideal one with an attack complexity of about 2^{n/2}. Next, we introduce the tweakable blockcipher tilde{F}[1]. It consists of one multiplication and one blockcipher call with tweak-dependent key, and achieves 2^{2n/3} security. Finally, we introduce tilde{F}[2], which makes two blockcipher calls, one of which with tweak-dependent key, and achieves optimal 2^n security. Both schemes are more efficient than all existing beyond birthday bound tweakable blockciphers known to date, as long as one blockcipher key renewal is cheaper than one blockcipher evaluation plus one universal hash evaluation

Tweak-Length Extension for Tweakable Blockciphers

Tweakable blockcipher (TBC) is an extension of standard blockcipher introduced by Liskov, Rivest and Wagner in 2002. TBC is a versatile building block for efficient symmetric-key cryptographic functions, such as authenticated encryption. In this paper we study the problem of extending tweak of a given TBC of fixed-length tweak, which is a variant of popular problem of converting a blockcipher into a TBC, i.e., blockcipher mode of operation. The problem is particularly important for known dedicated TBCs since they have relatively short tweak. We propose a simple and efficient solution, called XTX, for this problem. XTX converts a TBC of fixed-length tweak into another TBC of arbitrarily long tweak, by extending the scheme of Liskov, Rivest and Wagner that converts a blockcipher into a TBC. Given a TBC of $n$-bit block and $m$-bit tweak, XTX provides $(n+m)/2$-bit security while conventional methods provide $n/2$ or $m/2$-bit security. We also show that XTX is even useful when combined with some blockcipher modes for building TBC having security beyond the birthday bound

Tweaking a block cipher: multi-user beyond-birthday-bound security in the standard model

In this paper, we present a generic construction to create a secure tweakable block cipher from a secure block cipher. Our construction is very natural, requiring four calls to the underlying block cipher for each call of the tweakable block cipher. Moreover, it is provably secure in the standard model while keeping the security degradation minimal in the multi-user setting. In more details, if the underlying blockcipher E uses n-bit blocks and 2n-bit keys, then our construction is proven secure against multi-user adversaries using up to roughly 2n time and queries as long as E is a secure block cipher

Beyond-Birthday-Bound Security for Tweakable Even-Mansour Ciphers with Linear Tweak and Key Mixing

The iterated Even-Mansour construction defines a block cipher from a tuple of public $n$-bit permutations $(P_1,\ldots,P_r)$ by alternatively xoring some $n$-bit round key $k_i$, $i=0,\ldots,r$, and applying permutation $P_i$ to the state. The \emph{tweakable} Even-Mansour construction generalizes the conventional Even-Mansour construction by replacing the $n$-bit round keys by $n$-bit strings derived from a master key \emph{and a tweak}, thereby defining a tweakable block cipher. Constructions of this type have been previously analyzed, but they were either secure only up to the birthday bound, or they used a nonlinear mixing function of the key and the tweak (typically, multiplication of the key and the tweak seen as elements of some finite field) which might be costly to implement. In this paper, we tackle the question of whether it is possible to achieve beyond-birthday-bound security for such a construction by using only linear operations for mixing the key and the tweak into the state. We answer positively, describing a 4-round construction with a $2n$-bit master key and an $n$-bit tweak which is provably secure in the Random Permutation Model up to roughly $2^{2n/3}$ adversarial queries

How to Build Fully Secure Tweakable Blockciphers from Classical Blockciphers

This paper focuses on building a tweakable blockcipher from a classical blockcipher whose input and output wires all have a size of $n$ bits. The main goal is to achieve full $2^n$ security. Such a tweakable blockcipher was proposed by Mennink at FSE\u2715, and it is also the only tweakable blockcipher so far that claimed full $2^n$ security to our best knowledge. However, we find a key-recovery attack on Mennink\u27s proposal (in the proceeding version) with a complexity of about $2^{n/2}$ adversarial queries. The attack well demonstrates that Mennink\u27s proposal has at most $2^{n/2}$ security, and therefore invalidates its security claim. In this paper, we study a construction of tweakable blockciphers denoted as $\tilde{\mathbb E}[s]$ that is built on $s$ invocations of a blockcipher and additional simple XOR operations. As proven in previous work, at least two invocations of blockcipher with linear mixing are necessary to possibly bypass the birthday-bound barrier of $2^{n/2}$ security, we carry out an investigation on the instances of $\tilde{\mathbb E}[s]$ with $s \ge 2$, and find $32$ highly efficient tweakable blockciphers $\widetilde{E1}$, $\widetilde{E2}$, $\ldots$, $\widetilde{E32}$ that achieve $2^n$ provable security. Each of these tweakable blockciphers uses two invocations of a blockcipher, one of which uses a tweak-dependent key generated by XORing the tweak to the key (or to a secret subkey derived from the key). We point out the provable security of these tweakable blockciphers is obtained in the ideal blockcipher model due to the usage of the tweak-dependent key

Tweaking Even-Mansour Ciphers

We study how to construct efficient tweakable block ciphers in the Random Permutation model, where all parties have access to public random permutation oracles. We propose a construction that combines, more efficiently than by mere black-box composition, the CLRW construction (which turns a traditional block cipher into a tweakable block cipher) of Landecker et al. (CRYPTO 2012) and the iterated Even-Mansour construction (which turns a tuple of public permutations into a traditional block cipher) that has received considerable attention since the work of Bogdanov et al. (EUROCRYPT 2012). More concretely, we introduce the (one-round) tweakable Even-Mansour (TEM) cipher, constructed from a single $n$-bit permutation $P$ and a uniform and almost XOR-universal family of hash functions $(H_k)$ from some tweak space to $\{0,1\}^n$, and defined as $(k,t,x)\mapsto H_k(t)\oplus P(H_k(t)\oplus x)$, where $k$ is the key, $t$ is the tweak, and $x$ is the $n$-bit message, as well as its generalization obtained by cascading $r$ independently keyed rounds of this construction. Our main result is a security bound up to approximately $2^{2n/3}$ adversarial queries against adaptive chosen-plaintext and ciphertext distinguishers for the two-round TEM construction, using Patarin\u27s H-coefficients technique. We also provide an analysis based on the coupling technique showing that asymptotically, as the number of rounds $r$ grows, the security provided by the $r$-round TEM construction approaches the information-theoretic bound of $2^n$ adversarial queries

Tight Security of Cascaded LRW2

At CRYPTO \u2712, Landecker et al. introduced the cascaded LRW2 (or CLRW2) construction, and proved that it is a secure tweakable block cipher up to roughly $2^{2n/3}$ queries. Recently, Mennink presented a distinguishing attack on CLRW2 in $2n^{1/2}2^{3n/4}$ queries. In the same paper, he discussed some non-trivial bottlenecks in proving tight security bound, i.e. security up to $2^{3n/4}$ queries. Subsequently, he proved security up to $2^{3n/4}$ queries for a variant of CLRW2 using $4$-wise independent AXU assumption and the restriction that each tweak value occurs at most $2^{n/4}$ times. Moreover, his proof relies on a version of mirror theory which is yet to be publicly verified. In this paper, we resolve the bottlenecks in Mennink\u27s approach and prove that the original CLRW2 is indeed a secure tweakable block cipher up to roughly $2^{3n/4}$ queries. To do so, we develop two new tools: First, we give a probabilistic result that provides improved bound on the joint probability of some special collision events; Second, we present a variant of Patarin\u27s mirror theory in tweakable permutation settings with a self-contained and concrete proof. Both these results are of generic nature, and can be of independent interests. To demonstrate the applicability of these tools, we also prove tight security up to roughly $2^{3n/4}$ queries for a variant of DbHtS, called DbHtS-p, that uses two independent universal hash functions

XPX: Generalized Tweakable Even-Mansour with Improved Security Guarantees

We present XPX, a tweakable blockcipher based on a single permutation P. On input of a tweak (t_{11},t_{12},t_{21},t_{22}) in T and a message m, it outputs ciphertext c=P(m xor Delta_1) xor Delta_2, where Delta_1=t_{11}k xor t_{12}P(k) and Delta_2=t_{21}k xor t_{22}P(k). Here, the tweak space T is required to satisfy a certain set of trivial conditions (such as (0,0,0,0) not in T). We prove that XPX with any such tweak space is a strong tweakable pseudorandom permutation. Next, we consider the security of XPX under related-key attacks, where the adversary can freely select a key-deriving function upon every evaluation. We prove that XPX achieves various levels of related-key security, depending on the set of key-deriving functions and the properties of T. For instance, if t_{12},t_{22} neq 0 and (t_{21},t_{22}) neq (0,1) for all tweaks, XPX is XOR-related-key secure. XPX generalizes Even-Mansour (EM), but also Rogaway\u27s XEX based on EM, and various other tweakable blockciphers. As such, XPX finds a wide range of applications. We show how our results on XPX directly imply related-key security of the authenticated encryption schemes Prøst-COPA and Minalpher, and how a straightforward adjustment to the MAC function Chaskey and to keyed Sponges makes them provably related-key secure

Stealth Key Exchange and Confined Access to the Record Protocol Data in TLS 1.3

We show how to embed a covert key exchange sub protocol within a regular TLS 1.3 execution, generating a stealth key in addition to the regular session keys. The idea, which has appeared in the literature before, is to use the exchanged nonces to transport another key value. Our contribution is to give a rigorous model and analysis of the security of such embedded key exchanges, requiring that the stealth key remains secure even if the regular key is under adversarial control. Specifically for our stealth version of the TLS 1.3 protocol we show that this extra key is secure in this setting under the common assumptions about the TLS protocol. As an application of stealth key exchange we discuss sanitizable channel protocols, where a designated party can partly access and modify payload data in a channel protocol. This may be, for instance, an intrusion detection system monitoring the incoming traffic for malicious content and putting suspicious parts in quarantine. The noteworthy feature, inherited from the stealth key exchange part, is that the sender and receiver can use the extra key to still communicate securely and covertly within the sanitizable channel, e.g., by pre-encrypting confidential parts and making only dedicated parts available to the sanitizer. We discuss how such sanitizable channels can be implemented with authenticated encryption schemes like GCM or ChaChaPoly. In combination with our stealth key exchange protocol, we thus derive a full-fledged sanitizable connection protocol, including key establishment, which perfectly complies with regular TLS 1.3 traffic on the network level. We also assess the potential effectiveness of the approach for the intrusion detection system Snort