Multiplicative Differentials
Nikita Borisov6, Monica Chew6, Rob Johnson6 and David Wagner6
| (6) |
University of California at Berkeley, USA |
Abstract
We present a new type of differential that is particularly suited to analyzing ciphers that use modular multiplication as
a primitive operation. These differentials are partially inspired by the differential used to break Nimbus, and we generalize
that result. We use these differentials to break the MultiSwap cipher that is part of the Microsoft Digital Rights Management
subsystem, to derive a complementation property in the xmx cipher using the recommended modulus, and to mount a weak key attack
on the xmx cipher for many other moduli. We also present weak key attacks on several variants of IDEA. We conclude that cipher
designers may have placed too much faith in multiplication as a mixing operator, and that it should be combined with at least
two other incompatible group operations.
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