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International Conference on Cryptology and Network Security

CANS 2014: Cryptology and Network Security pp 50–63Cite as

Breaking and Fixing Cryptophia’s Short Combiner

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 8813))

Abstract

A combiner is a construction formed out of two hash functions that is secure if one of the underlying functions is. Conventional combiners are known not to support short outputs: if the hash functions have n-bit outputs the combiner should have at least almost 2n bits of output in order to be robust for collision resistance (Pietrzak, CRYPTO 2008). Mittelbach (ACNS 2013) introduced a relaxed security model for combiners and presented “Cryptophia’s short combiner,” a rather delicate construction of an n-bit combiner that achieves optimal collision, preimage, and second preimage security. We re-analyze Cryptophia’s combiner and show that a collision can be found in two queries and a second preimage in one query, invalidating the claimed results. We additionally propose a way to fix the design in order to re-establish the original security results.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Electrical Engineering, ESAT/COSIC, KU Leuven, and iMinds, Belgium

    Bart Mennink & Bart Preneel

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  1. Bart Mennink
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  2. Bart Preneel
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, Athens University of Economics & Business, 76, Patission Str., 10434, Athens, Greece

    Dimitris Gritzalis

  2. Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, Panepistimiopolis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15784, Athens, Greece

    Aggelos Kiayias

  3. FORTH-ICS, Vassilika Vouton, P.O. Box 1385, 711 10, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Ioannis Askoxylakis

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Mennink, B., Preneel, B. (2014). Breaking and Fixing Cryptophia’s Short Combiner. In: Gritzalis, D., Kiayias, A., Askoxylakis, I. (eds) Cryptology and Network Security. CANS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8813. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12280-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12280-9_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12279-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12280-9

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