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Higher order differential properties constitute a very insightful tool at the hands of a cryptanalyst allowing for probing a cryptographic primitive from an algebraic perspective. In FSE 2017, Saha et al. reported SymSum (referred to as SymSum Vec in this paper), a new distinguisher based on higher order vectorial Boolean derivatives of SHA-3 , constituting one of the best distinguishers on the latest cryptographic hash standard. SymSum Vec exploits the difference in the algebraic degree of highest degree monomials in the algebraic normal form of SHA-3 with regards to their dependence on round constants. Later in AFRICACRYPT 2020, Suryawanshi et al. extended SymSum Vec using linearization techniques and in SSS 2023 also applied it to NIST-LWC finalist Xoodyak. However, a major limitation of SymSum Vec is the maximum attainable derivative (MAD) of the polynomial representation, which is less than half of the widely studied ZeroSum distinguisher. This is attributed to SymSum Vec being dependent on k-fold vectorial derivatives while ZeroSum relies on k-fold simple derivatives. In this work we overcome this limitation of SymSum Vec by developing and validating the theory of computing SymSum Vec with simple derivatives. This gives us a close to 100 % improvement in the MAD that can be computed. The new distinguisher reported in this work can also be combined with 1/2-round linearization to penetrate more rounds. Moreover, we identify an issue with the 2-round linearization claim made by Suryawanshi et al. which renders it invalid and also furnishes an algebraic fix at the cost of some additional constraints. Combining all the results we report SymSum Sim , a new variant of the SymSum Vec distinguisher based on k-fold simple derivatives that outperforms ZeroSum by a factor of 2 257 , 2 129 for 10 - round SHA3-384 and 9-round SHA3-512 respectively while enjoying the same MAD as ZeroSum. For every other SHA-3 variant, SymSum Sim maintains an advantage of factor 2 over the ZeroSum. Combined with 1/2-round linearization, SymSum Sim improves upon all existing ZeroSum and SymSum Vec distinguishers on both SHA-3 and Xoodyak. As regards Keccak - p , the internal permutation of SHA-3 , we report the best 15-round distinguisher with a complexity of 2 256 and the first better than birthday-bound 16-round distinguisher with a complexity of 2 512 (improving upon the 15/16-round results by Guo et al. in ASIACRYPT 2016). We also devise the best full-round distinguisher on the Xoodoo internal permutation of Xoodyak with a practically verifiable complexity of 2 32 and furnish the first third-party distinguishers on the Belarushian-standard hash function Bash. All distinguishers presented in this work have been verified through implementations whenever practically viable. Overall, with the MAD barrier broken, SymSum Sim emerges as a better distinguisher than ZeroSum on all fronts and adds to the state-of-the-art of cryptanalytic tools investigating non-randomness of crypto primitives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain has several unique features: data integrity, security, privacy, and immutability. For this reason, it is considered one of the most promising new technologies for a wide range of applications. Initially prominent in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, its applications have expanded into areas such as the Internet of Things. However, integrating blockchain into IoT systems is challenging due to the limited computing and storage capabilities of IoT devices. Efficient blockchain mining requires lightweight hash functions that balance computational complexity with resource constraints. In this study, we employed a structured methodology to evaluate hash functions for blockchain–IoT systems. Initially, a survey is conducted to identify the most commonly used hash functions in such environments. Also, this study identifies and evaluates a lightweight hash function, designated as HashLEA, for integration within blockchain-based IoT systems. Subsequently, these functions are implemented and evaluated using software coded in C and Node.js, thereby ensuring compatibility and practical applicability. Performance metrics, including software efficiency, hardware implementation, energy consumption, and security assessments, were conducted and analyzed. Ultimately, the most suitable hash functions, including HashLEA for blockchain–IoT applications, are discussed, striking a balance between computational efficiency and robust cryptographic properties. Also, the HashLEA hash function is implemented on a Raspberry Pi 4 with an ARM processor to assess its performance in a real-world blockchain–IoT environment. HashLEA successfully passes security tests, achieving a near-ideal avalanche effect, uniform hash distribution, and low standard deviation. It has been shown to demonstrate superior execution time performance, processing 100 KB messages in 0.157 ms and 10 MB messages in 15.48 ms, which represents a significant improvement in execution time over other alternatives such as Scrypt, X11, and Skein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Keccak algorithm plays a significant role in ensuring the security and confidentiality of data in modern information systems. However, it involves computational complexities that can hinder high-performance applications. This paper proposes a novel high-performance hardware architecture for the Keccak algorithm to address this problem. Our proposed hardware architecture exploits existing parallelisms in the Keccak algorithm to optimize its execution in terms of both speed and resource efficiency. By thoroughly analyzing the Keccak algorithm's structure and building blocks, we adapted our hardware architecture to take full advantage of the capabilities of modern FPGAs and ASICs. Key features of the high-performance hardware architecture include parallelized computation blocks, efficient digital design and a streamlined data path. In addition to these, we also make use of hardware level design considerations such as FPGA floorplanning, pipelining and bit-level parallelisms to increase the performance of our design. All these design considerations contribute to significantly increased processing speeds surpassing traditional software-based approaches and previous hardware-based implementations. Our design also minimizes resource usage, making it applicable to a wide variety of embedded and cryptographic systems. This makes our design suitable for applications that require both high throughput and secure data processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problems of low accuracy and poor stability of the current algorithms in solving multi-dimensional knapsacks, especially the inability to effectively solve super-large-scale arithmetic cases, this paper proposed a new type of hu- man learning optimization algorithm. Firstly, the noval human learning algorithm used a hash function based on the memory theory in cognitive psychology to represent the memory behaviour of human beings in the learning process, avoiding repeated searches and improving the algorithm's search group diversity. Secondly, the algorithm used the contrastive cognition theory from cognitive psychology to adaptively adjust the learning operator selection strategy. Finally, the algorithm used a variable neighborhood search operation to enhance the algorithm s local search capability. This paper conducted numerical experiments using a standardized test dataset of a total of 76 multidimensional knapsack problems that covered small, medium, large, and very large scales. Experiments compared the new algorithm with binary particle swarm algorithms, genetic algorithms, human learning algorithms, and human learning algorithms that incorporated the psychology of learning. The results show that the new algorithm is able to solve the four scale instances efficiently. Compared with other algorithms, the new algorithm has higher ac- curacy in finding the optimum and better stability. In addition, this paper analyzed three proposed optimization strategies to test their effectiveness in improving the algorithm's search performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As blockchain technology and smart contracts develop, computer technology is constantly integrating with smart chemical plants. Due to the continuous development of intelligent chemical plants, their systems have gradually become large and dispersed, posing a threat to safety management. In order to improve the performance of intelligent security management systems, the study first explores the principles of blockchain and smart contract technology, and then combined with the requirements of intelligent chemical plant security management systems, designs an intelligent security management system based on blockchain and smart contract technology. The experimental results showed that compared to systems without smart contract support, the communication success rate between nodes was lower. The error rates of blockchain-based encryption systems, deep learning-based encryption systems and improved data encryption systems proposed in the study were 0.22, 0.07 and 0.09, respectively. The packet loss rates were 0.13, 0.04 and 0.05, respectively. The lower the bit error rate and packet loss rate of the encryption system, the clearer the illegal eavesdropping information. The experimental results indicate that the intelligent security management system designed in this study has good encryption performance and a higher communication success rate. The results have certain reference value in security management application in intelligent chemical plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to technological advancement, Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) which are one of the forms of Mobile Ad-hoc networks (MANETs) have become one of the most prevalent development paradigms for smart transportation systems where each vehicle equipped with sensors behaves as a mobile node. VANETs provide support for Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communication. To ensure the traffic safety and efficiency, VANETs are used to provide real time information of road condition, traffic condition, and weather condition to vehicles. To provide secure communication in VANETs, authenticity of the entity transmitting information becomes a critical aspect that needs to be addressed properly. Despite extensive protocols proposed for mutual authentication and secure key distribution in VANETs, they still have some limitations in terms of computation cost and security. Vijayakumar et al.'s and Cui et al.'s schemes (IEEE Trans Intell Transp Syst 17(4):1015–1028, 2015; Veh Commun 21:100200, 2020) provide better VANETs communication security but computation overheads of these protocols are significantly high which result in procrastinated authentication. Azam et al.'s (Glob Trans Proc 2(2):163–168, 2021) and Vighnesh et al.'s schemes (2011) fail to provide protection against fake Roadside Unit (RSU) attack on Trusted Authority (TA) and fake TA attack on RSU. Islam et al.'s scheme (Futur Gener Comput Syst 84:216–227, 2018) fails to provide message authentication. Therefore, in this work, we presented a computationally efficient privacy-preserving mutual authentication and a novel star topology based key distribution protocol for secure transmission in VANETs. Performance analysis clearly shows that proposed protocol significantly attenuates the computation overheads during the authentication message generation and verification compare to other existing protocols. Furthermore, our novel key distribution protocol eliminates the rekeying process i.e., any vehicle leaves or joins the group there is no need to change the secret parameters of existing vehicles. Security analysis shows that our scheme has robust security mechanism to provide protection against most prevalent security attacks. It also guarantees the backward, forward and group key secrecy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A two-input function is a dual PRF if it is a PRF when keyed by either of its inputs. Dual PRFs are assumed in the design and analysis of numerous primitives and protocols including HMAC, AMAC, TLS 1.3 and MLS. But, not only do we not know whether particular functions on which the assumption is made really are dual PRFs; we do not know if dual PRFs even exist. What if the goal is impossible? This paper addresses this with a foundational treatment of dual PRFs, giving constructions based on standard assumptions. This provides what we call a generic validation of the dual PRF assumption. Our approach is to introduce and construct symmetric PRFs, which imply dual PRFs and may be of independent interest. We give a general construction of a symmetric PRF based on a function having a weak form of collision resistance coupled with a leakage hardcore function, a strengthening of the usual notion of hardcore functions we introduce. We instantiate this general construction in two ways to obtain two specific symmetric and dual PRFs, the first assuming any collision-resistant hash function and the second assuming any one-way permutation. A construction based on any one-way function evades us and is left as an intriguing open problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers types, functions and some features of cryptosystems, as well as circuit design options for expanding their functionality. Options for generating keys and ciphers used in cryptosystems with a typical structural organization, and technologies for creating encryption chains are presented. An encryption scheme is described, in the recurrent formula of the algorithm of which the previous blocks of both encryption and plaintext are used. This scheme reliably protects against any unauthorized modification of the encrypted text. Structural diagrams of the organization of symmetric and asymmetric cryptosystems are given. A variant of implementing a decoding procedure in a threshold MIMA cryptomodule for sharing a secret with a masking transformation is proposed, in which the necessary time and hardware costs for performing the procedure of reconstructing the original secret are minimized. The presented material can be the part of the original sections of a necessary and sufficiently provided in mathematical terms textbook on the basics and modern problems of cryptography.

The design of a chaotic image encryption algorithm plays an essential role in enhancing information and communication security. The performance of such algorithms is intricately linked to the complexity of the chaotic sequence and the underlying encryption algorithm. To additionally enhance the complexity of hyperchaotic systems, this study presents a novel construction of a Five-Dimensional (5D) memristive hyperchaotic system through the introduction of the flux-controlled memristor model. The system’s dynamic characteristics are examined through various analytical methods, including phase portraits, bifurcation diagrams, and Lyapunov exponent spectra. Accordingly, the sequences produced by the hyperchaotic system, which passed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) test, are employed to inform the creation of a novelty image encryption technique that combines hash function, Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) encoding, logistic, and Two-Dimensional Hyperchaotic Map (2D-SFHM). It improves the sensitivity of key and plaintext images to image encryption, expands the algorithm key space, and increases the complexity of the encryption algorithm. Experimental findings and analysis validate the exceptional encryption capabilities of the novel algorithm. The algorithm exhibits a considerable key space 2512, and the ciphertext image demonstrates an information entropy of 7.9994, with inter-pixel correlation approaching zero, etc., showcasing its resilience against different types of attacks on images.

Ensuring the security of picture data on a network presents considerable difficulties because of the requirement for conventional embedding systems, which ultimately leads to subpar performance. It poses a risk of unauthorized data acquisition and misuse. Moreover, the previous image security-based techniques faced several challenges, including high execution times. As a result, a novel framework called Graph Convolutional-Based Twofish Security (GCbTS) was introduced to secure the images used in healthcare. The medical data are gathered from the Kaggle site and included in the proposed architecture. Preprocessing is performed on the data inserted to remove noise, and the hash 1 value is computed. Using the generated key, these separated images are put through the encryption process to encrypt what they contain. Additionally, to verify the user's identity, the encrypted data calculates the hash 2 values contrasted alongside the hash 1 value. Following completion of the verification procedure, the data are restored to their original condition and made accessible to authorized individuals by decrypting them with the collective key. Additionally, to determine the effectiveness, the calculated results of the suggested model are connected to the operational copy, which depends on picture privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distrust in voting is not a rare phenomenon even in developed countries. Electronic voting (e-voting), however, appeared as an alternative, but is still not practiced on a large scale. This is due to the fact that despite the huge number of articles it is not yet possible to completely ensure security, privacy and verifiability. It is hard to create a system or a protocol fulfilling all requirements, especially unconditionally. Designing effective voting systems is challenging because these aspects often conflict with each other. There are issues that need to be resolved. For example, one of such challenges is trying to ensure identification and keep votes private while still being able to verify them. There are quite a few cryptographic schemes which fulfill wide requirements for online elections. Their only disadvantage is inconvenience: they use sophisticated cryptographic tools that make them hard to implement and require expertise in various fields. In this paper we suggest a new approach that ensures this requirements without complex cryptographic methods. First, we propose a novel architecture for an internet voting system that incorporates steganography techniques to enhance the security of the system. In the proposed architecture steganography is used to hide the votes within the data packets transmitted between the storage, that keeps all the votes, and the counting server. The next proposed novelty is the solution of the privacy – verifiability problem using only face recognition, properties of image entropy and hash functions. The advantage of this system is ease of use without loss of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security plays a vital role in various domains, including blockchain technology. The Blockchain serves as a secure data structure for storing transactional records. Hash functions are employed in cryptography to ensure integrity and authentication within the blockchain. The widely used SHA256 algorithm has faced recent attacks, prompting the development of stronger hash functions. This paper presents a novel modification approach to enhance the performance of SHA256 by introducing an extended mechanism for generating a 288-bit message digest and reducing the number of rounds to 44 instead of 64 while preserving the diffusion of data through its complex iterative process, which involves multiple rounds of bitwise and logical operations. The change makes sure that even small changes to the input data cause noticeable variations in the output hash, thereby maintaining cryptographic properties. The suggested hash function SHA288 achieves improved security, collision resistance, and preimage resistance, while maintaining a faster execution time compared to SHA256. The tables and tests conducted on the suggested algorithm have revealed its remarkable safety and robustness in countering attacks as well as demonstrated outstanding performance in random tests, which further enhances its security measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, telediagnosis and telesurgery in the e-healthcare domain use medical images that are sensitive to external disturbances and manipulations leading to huge differences in the final result. To keep safe such images, cryptography is among the best methods and especially when it integrates chaotic systems due to their sensitivity to initial seeds. So, a chaos-based cryptosystem using DNA confusion and diffusion is proposed and applied to biomedical images in this work. It also includes hash functions that compress an indeterminate size of data into fixed size of data. The security and the reliability of the information system are ensured with the combination of two hash functions. The execution time is then considerable, and the integrity of the encrypted image is guaranteed. Encoding/decoding rules and operations are selected using the result of the numerical integration of the logistic map. At the level of diffusion, seven functions are employed reinforcing the security level of our cryptosystem. The construction of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) key is done through the iteration of the new cyclic chaotic system having initial states derived using the keys obtained from the combination of hash functions and external key, thus building a PRNS (pseudorandom number sequence). The entire dynamics of the new system in both symmetric and asymmetric cases is then performed, exhibiting relevant behaviors such as the coexistence of up to eight attractors, intermittency, parallel branches of bifurcations, and metastable chaos very rare in literature, to name a few. PSpice is used to verify the numerical results. Based on confusion and diffusion, the new encryption/decryption algorithm is effective in both processes. The experimental results show that the cryptosystem is able to withstand brute force, exhaustive, statistical, differential, and robustness attacks. Also, the comparison of the algorithm with good ones from the literature shows that it is among the best proposed up to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measure of diffusion, the property of dissipating patterns and statistical structures in cryptographic transformations, serves as a valuable heuristic for assessing the obscurity of patterns that could lead to collisions. As with many cryptographic hash functions, SHA-256 is thought to exhibit the property of diffusion. While SHA-256's diffuse output is loosely documented, even less is known about how the diffusion rate changes across the 64 rounds in its compression function and how the algorithm's individual sub-functions contribute to the overall diffusion. The diffusion of the unmodified compression function is initially measured using the Strict Avalanche Criterion (SAC), with the aim of understanding the alteration in diffusion across the 64 rounds of compression. The level to which sub-functions affect diffusion is subsequently measured, enabling potential prioritization of these sub-functions in future collision attacks. To accomplish this, the compression function is modified by removing sub-functions, and the diffusion of these new variants is measured. While the SAC measurements of each function eventually plateau close to the 50% target, no function, including the unmodified compression function, strictly meets the SAC, and multiple variant functions diffuse at comparatively slower rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the tremendous and rapid evolution taking place in the field of technology and considering the rise in data volume that is dealt with daily, managing this data, whether in terms of security or terms of storage especially if the data is huge, is considered a necessary issue. Therefore, in this research, we established a framework that provides both security and storage/repository management. Where the security issue in the suggested framework is supported by the use of lightweight hash functions and public-key encryption algorithms represented by SPONGENT and elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). Additionally, the fast random number generator is also used to support the security algorithms included in the framework, while managing the repository storage is controlled by the use of a hybrid Blockchain to manage storage for this type of big data. The process of storing this data in databases or any of the traditional centralized methods exposes the data to loss or penetration. After analyzing the proposed framework, it successfully addressed the prevention of malicious within the field of proposed research attacks. Moreover, the performance analysis of the framework proposed was quite effective with the lightweight SPONGENT and ECC results, while the creation of blocks in the storage phase was not more than 0.18 ns. Thus, we obtained an effective framework in terms of security, performance, and terms of data repository management and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Homomorphic evaluation of hash functions offers a solution to the challenge of data integrity authentication in the context of homomorphic encryption. The earliest attempt to achieve homomorphic evaluation of SHA-256 hash function was proposed by Mella and Susella (in: Cryptography and coding—14th IMA international conference, IMACC 2013. Lecture notes in computer science, vol 8308. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 28–44, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45239-0_3 .) based on the BGV scheme. Unfortunately, their implementation faced significant limitations due to the exceedingly high multiplicative depth, rendering it impractical. Recently, a homomorphic implementation of SHA-256 based on the TFHE scheme (Homomorphic evaluation of SHA-256. https://github.com/zama-ai/tfhe-rs/tree/main/tfhe/examples/sha256_bool ) brings it from theory to reality, however, its current efficiency remains insufficient. In this paper, we revisit the homomorphic evaluation of the SHA-256 hash function in the context of TFHE, further reducing the reliance on gate bootstrapping and enhancing evaluation latency. Specifically, we primarily utilize ternary gates to reduce the number of gate bootstrappings required for logic functions in message expansion and addition of modulo $$2^{32}$$ 2 32 in iterative compression. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our optimization techniques are applicable to the Chinese commercial cryptographic hash SM3. Finally, we give specific comparative implementations based on the TFHE-rs library. Experiments demonstrate that our optimization techniques lead to an improvement of approximately 35–50% compared with the state-of-the-art result under different cores.

Ascon, a family of algorithms that supports authenticated encryption and hashing, has been selected as the new standard for lightweight cryptography in the NIST Lightweight Cryptography Project. Ascon's permutation and authenticated encryption have been actively analyzed, but there are relatively few analyses on the hashing. In this paper, we concentrate on preimage attacks on Ascon-Xof. We focus on linearizing the polynomials leaked by the hash value to find its inverse. In an attack on 2-round Ascon-Xof, we carefully construct the set of guess bits using a greedy algorithm in the context of guess-and-determine. This allows us to attack Ascon-Xof more efficiently than the method in Dobraunig et al., and we fully implement our attack to demonstrate its effectiveness. We also provide the number of guess bits required to linearize one output bit after 3- and 4-round Ascon's permutation, respectively. In particular, for the first time, we connect the result for 3-round Ascon to a preimage attack on Ascon-Xof with a 64-bit output. Our attacks primarily focus on analyzing weakened versions of Ascon-Xof, where the weakening involves setting all the IV values to 0 and omitting the round constants. Although our attacks do not compromise the security of the full Ascon-Xof, they provide new insights into their security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security, a fundamental concern in the design and implementation of industrial Internet‐of‐Things (IIoT) networks, can be addressed through an effective authentication mechanism. Because the devices' battery, CPU, and memory are finite resources, any method designed for the IIoT must be resource sensitive. Our paper discussed a mechanism for device mutual authentication in IIoT networks that is adaptable, lightweight, safe, and efficient. In the proposed mechanism, the devices receive a primary secret value and physical unclonable function‐challenge/response pair (PUF‐CRPs) from the server and employ these values to authenticate one another. Later, IIoT devices requests server to update PUF‐CRPs for future communication We employed one‐way hash function, concatenation operation, XOR operation, and PUF‐CRPs to take into account the resource constraints of the devices. It has been established that the proposed mechanism is immune to well‐known attacks after it has undergone a formal evaluation for safety through BAN logic, and automatic validation through AVISPA and ProVerif tools. Comparative evaluation of the existing mechanisms and the proposed mechanism demonstrated that our proposed mechanism is superior to existing mechanisms, and its experimental study revealed that it uses 28% less energy. Our proposed mechanism is more secure and effective in terms of computing, communication, and storage overheads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital signatures play a vital role in data security as they provide authenticity and non-repudiation of digital data. Code-based digital signatures are in high demand as quantum computers are extremely effective at breaking widely used digital signatures. The Courtois–Finiasz–Sendrier (CFS) scheme is one of the most popular code-based digital signature schemes. However, it has some disadvantages, such as a large public key size and poor signing efficiency. To address this issue, we construct a digital signature scheme named ENR DigiSig (Ekta Narwal and Rupali Digital Signature) using polar codes with several characteristics such as small signature size, low signing time, and high signing efficiency. Here, the hash of a shorter length is used in a specific way; then, padding is done to the hash output so that the result can be decoded. For this study, we have selected a fixed polar code rate of 0.5 and a blocklength of N = 2 n ; n ⩽ 4 . According to the experimental results, more than 96% of the signatures are generated successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lyapunov exponent serves as a measure of the average divergence or convergence between chaotic trajectories from the perspective of Lyapunov exponents (LEs). Chaotic systems with more and larger positive LEs have more complex dynamical behavior and can weaken the degeneration of digital chaos. Some existing control algorithms for chaos need more and larger preset parameters, which are not favorable for practical application; others require the original system to satisfy specific conditions, which lack generality. To address the deficiencies of these algorithms, this paper proposes a construction algorithm of N-dimensional discrete non-degenerate chaos based on two-parameter gain (ND-NCTG), which can realize the non-degenerate or non-chaotic control of chaotic systems by only two control parameters. We take a 3D chaotic system as an example and analyze the relationship between control parameters and LEs, as well as the characteristics of chaotic sequences, to verify the effectiveness and reliability of the algorithm. In addition, since the initial value sensitivity of the chaotic system coincides with the sensitivity in input information for the hash function, this paper takes the proposed chaotic construction algorithm as the basis to design a bidirectional diffusion chaotic hash function. The effectiveness and security of this hash algorithm are verified by sensitivity, statistical distribution and collision analysis. Compared with similar algorithms, both the non-degenerate chaotic construction algorithm and the hash function algorithm proposed in this paper have better performance and can meet the application requirements of secure communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homomorphic evaluation of hash functions offers a solution to the challenge of data integrity authentication in the context of homomorphic encryption. The earliest attempt to achieve homomorphic evaluation of SHA-256 hash function was proposed by Mella and Susella (in: Cryptography and coding—14th IMA international conference, IMACC 2013. Lecture notes in computer science, vol 8308. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 28–44, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45239-0%5f3.) based on the BGV scheme. Unfortunately, their implementation faced significant limitations due to the exceedingly high multiplicative depth, rendering it impractical. Recently, a homomorphic implementation of SHA-256 based on the TFHE scheme (Homomorphic evaluation of SHA-256. https://github.com/zama-ai/tfhe-rs/tree/main/tfhe/examples/sha256%5fbool) brings it from theory to reality, however, its current efficiency remains insufficient. In this paper, we revisit the homomorphic evaluation of the SHA-256 hash function in the context of TFHE, further reducing the reliance on gate bootstrapping and enhancing evaluation latency. Specifically, we primarily utilize ternary gates to reduce the number of gate bootstrappings required for logic functions in message expansion and addition of modulo 2 32 in iterative compression. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our optimization techniques are applicable to the Chinese commercial cryptographic hash SM3. Finally, we give specific comparative implementations based on the TFHE-rs library. Experiments demonstrate that our optimization techniques lead to an improvement of approximately 35–50% compared with the state-of-the-art result under different cores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To ensure the safety of power grid operation and the accuracy of data, it is necessary to solve the problems of credibility and transparency in traditional data auditing systems. In this study, the use of blockchain was proposed to design the system. It is a distributed ledger technology that can definitely provide new solutions for power grid engineering data auditing. In this article, the basic principles and characteristics of blockchain were elaborated in detail, and the application scenarios and advantages of blockchain technology in power grid engineering data audit systems were discussed. The challenges and problems of this technology in the field of power grid were analyzed. The research results indicated that the audit efficiency of the method proposed in this article ranged from 89% to 98%. Blockchain technology can provide advantages such as data security, transparency, traceability, and decentralization for power grid engineering data audit systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To ensure the security of sensitive data, elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is adopted as an asymmetric method that balances security and efficiency. Nevertheless, embedding messages into elliptic curve (EC) points poses a significant challenge. The intricacies of this process can greatly affect the overall security and efficiency of the cryptosystem, reflecting security vulnerabilities observed in many existing schemes that utilize ElGamal ECC-based encryption. In this paper, we introduce an innovative hash-based technique for securely embedding messages into EC points before encryption. A random parameter and a shared secret point generated through the EC Diffie–Hellman protocol are used to bolster the scheme's security. The security of the proposed method is evaluated against various attack models; moreover, the complexity, and sensitivity of the encryption scheme, as well as its inputs, are analyzed. The randomness assessment of the ciphertext was performed using the NIST statistical test suite. Additionally, we propose a mechanism to ensure the integrity of the message by securely appending a tag to the ciphertext. As a consequence, a comprehensive analysis of our scheme demonstrates its effectiveness in maintaining data security and integrity against various attack models. The algorithm also meets more criteria such as the strict avalanche criterion, linear complexity, and operability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A chameleon hash function is a type of hash function that involves a trapdoor to help find collisions, i.e., it allows the rewriting of a message without modifying the hash. For some applications, it is important to have the feature of revoking the rewriting privilege of the trapdoor holder. In this paper, using lattice-based hard problems that are considered quantum-safe, we first introduce a lattice-based chameleon hash with an ephemeral trapdoor (CHET)\left({\mathsf{CHET}}) and then a revocable attribute-based encryption (RABE{\mathsf{RABE}}) scheme that is adaptively indistinguishable. We also give security analyses of our schemes and compare our RABE{\mathsf{RABE}} scheme to two relevant schemes proposed recently. Furthermore, we combine our CHET{\mathsf{CHET}} and RABE{\mathsf{RABE}} to design a new revocable policy-based chameleon hash.

Hash functions are a crucial component in incrementally verifiable computation (IVC) protocols and applications. Among those, recursive SNARKs and folding schemes require hash functions to be both fast in native CPU computations and compact in algebraic descriptions (constraints). However, neither SHA-2/3 nor newer algebraic constructions, such as Poseidon, achieve both requirements. In this work we overcome this problem in several steps. First, for certain prime field domains we propose a new design strategy called Kintsugi, which explains how to construct nonlinear layers of high algebraic degree which allow fast native implementations and at the same time also an efficient circuit description for zeroknowledge applications. Then we suggest another layer, based on the Feistel Type-3 scheme, and prove wide trail bounds for its combination with an MDS matrix. We propose a new permutation design named Monolith to be used as a sponge or compression function. It is the first arithmetization-oriented function with a native performance comparable to SHA3-256. At the same time, it outperforms Poseidon in a circuit using the Merkle tree prover in the Plonky2 framework. Contrary to previously proposed designs, Monolith also allows for efficient constant-time native implementations which mitigates the risk of side-channel attacks.

Recently, there has been a growing demand for image encryption techniques that offer robust protection and minimize processing time. The proposed paper proposes an efficient color image encryption system that excels in speed and security. The encryption system comprises three fundamental phases. The initial phase generates a unique encryption key by combining user-defined input with the original image and applying various operations and hash functions. In the confusion phase, the image is divided into blocks, forming a Binary Tree (BT) using primary color blocks, ensuring that the root and leaves belong to different colors. The confused matrix is derived through an inorder traversal that ensures non-adjacency of pixels of the same color, introducing an added layer of security. Finally, each pixel is scrambled by applying BT to its binary form to add more security and complexity. A DNA sequence is generated, and operations are executed based on two different chaotic maps, enhancing unpredictability and attack resistance. Extensive testing has validated the effectiveness of the proposed system, revealing a remarkable 28–45% reduction in processing time compared to recent techniques. Moreover, the system successfully withstands various attacks, as demonstrated through rigorous evaluations, including high-performance, visual perception, and cryptosystem strength evaluations. These results underscore the practical applicability and robust security offered by our efficient color image encryption solution, which provides a practical solution for applications prioritizing efficiency.

Blockchain has several unique features: data integrity, security, privacy, and immutability. For this reason, it is considered one of the most promising new technologies for a wide range of applications. Initially prominent in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, its applications have expanded into areas such as the Internet of Things. However, integrating blockchain into IoT systems is challenging due to the limited computing and storage capabilities of IoT devices. Efficient blockchain mining requires lightweight hash functions that balance computational complexity with resource constraints. In this study, we employed a structured methodology to evaluate hash functions for blockchain–IoT systems. Initially, a survey is conducted to identify the most commonly used hash functions in such environments. Also, this study identifies and evaluates a lightweight hash function, designated as HashLEA, for integration within blockchain-based IoT systems. Subsequently, these functions are implemented and evaluated using software coded in C and Node.js, thereby ensuring compatibility and practical applicability. Performance metrics, including software efficiency, hardware implementation, energy consumption, and security assessments, were conducted and analyzed. Ultimately, the most suitable hash functions, including HashLEA for blockchain–IoT applications, are discussed, striking a balance between computational efficiency and robust cryptographic properties. Also, the HashLEA hash function is implemented on a Raspberry Pi 4 with an ARM processor to assess its performance in a real-world blockchain–IoT environment. HashLEA successfully passes security tests, achieving a near-ideal avalanche effect, uniform hash distribution, and low standard deviation. It has been shown to demonstrate superior execution time performance, processing 100 KB messages in 0.157 ms and 10 MB messages in 15.48 ms, which represents a significant improvement in execution time over other alternatives such as Scrypt, X11, and Skein.

The foundation of this research is the quantum implementation of two hashing algorithms, namely Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA1) and Message Digest (MD5). Quantum cryptography is a challenging topic in network security for future networks. Quantum cryptography is an outgrowth of two broad topics—cryptology and cryptanalysis. In this paper, SHA1 and MD5 algorithms are designed and implemented for quantum computers. The main aim is to study and investigate the time requirement to build a hash and the bit rate at which a hash value is sent through. In this paper, a comprehensive analysis of these two algorithms is performed. Experiments have been done to compare and contrast the performances of the classical and proposed algorithms. In the experiment, it was found that the total time of execution of quantum SHA1 and quantum MD5 is much higher than the classical SHA1 and MD5. During quantum MD5 execution, it is observed that the time doubles when the number of chunks is increased from 1 to 2. Another experimental observation is that the execution time of the implemented algorithms depends upon the processor's speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Traditional scrambling algorithms frequently rely on static and fixed scrambling modes, which lack the involvement of chaotic sequences during the scrambling phase. This results in poor randomness in the scrambling process and can leave key information, such as facial features in images, inadequately protected. In the event that such sensitive information is stolen, it could lead to significant trouble. To mitigate these issues, this paper presents an image encryption algorithm that incorporates face recognition and bitonic sequence techniques. The algorithm utilizes the SHA-512 (Secure Hash Algorithm) for key generation and the Chen system for generating chaotic sequences during the encryption process. Initially, the algorithm identifies the face and facial features within the image via face recognition and facial feature recognition technologies. A row-column scrambling algorithm, designed based on the characteristics of the bitonic sequence, is then implemented to scramble the facial features while the Zigzag algorithm is used to break the row-column correlation. With respect to the overall image scrambling, the Fisher Yeats scrambling algorithm is employed, and the entire image is uniformly diffused. Through simulation experiments and security tests, the proposed algorithm has shown better performance than other methods in terms of NPCR and UACI testing studies, resulting in outcomes closer to the ideal values of 99.6094% and 33.4635%, respectively. Other experimental data also demonstrates performance that is near ideal, and the decrypted images show good visual quality against various attacks. Overall, the proposed algorithm exhibits strong robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whirlpool is a hash function that has been standardized by ISO/IEC. In this paper, we develop a new type of distinguishing property for its underlying permutation |$ W $|⁠. Division property proposed by Todo at EUROCRYPT 2015 was initially used in the integral cryptanalysis of symmetric-key algorithms. This work for the first time utilizes the MILP method to search for the integral distinguishers of |$ W $| in both the forward and backward directions while concentrating on word-based division property. Under the known-key model, the fact that the permutation used in the hash function does not depend on any secret parameters allows the previous properties to be exploited from the middle, i.e. from an intermediate internal state. Therefore, we apply the inside-out strategy which is the essential step in the zero-sum property to connect the trails in opposite directions. Consequently, we obtain new distinguishers up to full rounds for the |$ W $|⁠. To further reduce the complexity of the integral distinguishers, we add one round in the middle with the help of subspace trails. Finally, we succeed in extending the length and improving the complexity of the integral distinguishers. To the best of our knowledge, all the results in this paper are competitive with the previous work in both computational cost and memory complexity. It is worth mentioning that the methods presented in this paper are applicable to a broad class of hash functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing usage of the Internet for sharing the digital Holy Quran reinforces the requirement for its protection from security breaches. Watermarking is the most widely used tool to preserve integrity and authenticity during data transmission. Previously proposed Quranic text watermarking techniques have limitations in terms of providing high capacity, imperceptibility and security simultaneously. This paper proposed an invisible watermarking technique, i.e., UniHaCh that employs Unicode UTF-8 values of the top six most frequently occurring characters in the Quranic verses integrated with the character counting mechanism, resulting in a high-capacity watermark key. The SHA3 hash function is used to obtain a fixed 256-bit watermark key that is embedded in the text at random locations using a secret key of 256 bits. The insertion of the watermark key is made imperceptible by utilizing zero-width spaces, preserving the original appearance of the text. Experimental results proved that the proposed approach is robust against modification, insertion and deletion attacks. UniHaCh was found efficient in providing authenticity and integrity simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The infrastructure of the Internet of Things (IoT) is made up of wireless communication and sensing devices that are highly vulnerable. The authentication of the participating nodes, the confidentiality of the information transferred through an insecure channel, and access control are the major issues to be resolved in the IoT infrastructure. The security protocols used in the IoT are based on integer factorization (IF) and discrete logarithm problems (DLP), which have been proven vulnerable to quantum attacks. This paper proposes a model for a quantum-secure node-to-node authentication protocol for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) infrastructure. The protocol is modeled, and its correctness is proved formally based on the hardness of the inhomogeneous short integer solution (ISIS) problem on lattices. The security of the protocol model is verified against known attacks on the IoT infrastructure. We considered the well-known three-party protocol model to analyze the performance of the proposed model. It is analyzed for a 100-bit security level with specified security parameters. The average computation cost is computed for the number of hash functions(h(.)) and polynomial multiplication (PM) operations. The proposed model, required 2 h (.) + 3 PM for the IoT node, 1 h (.) + 2 PM for the Gateway device, and in total 3 h (.) + 5 PM operations are needed. We also compare our protocol model to similar protocols and demonstrate that it is both computationally efficient and quantum-safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, cryptographic hash functions are widely used in various applications, including message authentication codes, cryptographic random generators, digital signatures, key derivation functions, and post-quantum algorithms. Notably, they play a vital role in establishing secure communication between servers and clients. Specifically, servers often need to compute a large number of hash functions simultaneously to provide smooth services to connected clients. In this paper, we present highly optimized parallel implementations of Lightweight Secure Hash (LSH), a hash algorithm developed in Korea, on server sides. To optimize LSH performance, we leverage two parallel architectures: AVX-512 on high-end CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs. In essence, we introduce a word-level parallel processing design suitable for AVX-512 instruction sets and a data parallel processing design appropriate for the NVIDIA CUDA platform. In the former approach, we parallelize the core functions of LSH using AVX-512 registers and instructions. As a result, our first implementation achieves a performance improvement of up to 50.37% compared to the latest LSH AVX-2 implementation. In the latter approach, we optimize the core operation of LSH with CUDA PTX assembly and apply a coalesced memory access pattern. Furthermore, we determine the optimal number of blocks/threads configuration and CUDA streams for RTX 2080Ti and RTX 3090. Consequently, in the RTX 3090 architecture, our optimized CUDA implementation achieves about a 180.62% performance improvement compared with the initially ported LSH implementation to the CUDA platform. As far as we know, this is the first work on optimizing LSH with AVX-512 and NVIDIA GPU. The proposed implementation methodologies can be used alone or together in a server environment to achieve the maximum throughput of LSH computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain hardware wallets, through their security-by-design architecture, offer higher security assurances. They fundamentally differ from software wallets due to an important security property called Unicity. Unicity ensures that ownership is tied to a unique hardware entity, both physically and logically. This property is highly desirable if cryptocurrency assets under ownership are high in value. However, when such a hardware wallet is backed up, this unicity property is lost as the root seed or private key is cloned. The resulting security ramifications are numerous, ultimately leading to theft of funds in many cases. In this work, we introduce a practical recovery mechanism for hardware wallets that does not involve extraction or cloning of the private key or root seed for backup, thus preserving this unicity property. The proposed recovery mechanism ensures that the owner can access their cryptocurrency funds in case of malfunction/theft of the hardware wallet, even when it is not backed up. The novel mechanism is based on Symmetric Secret Sharing, a Key Revocation Certificate, a Smart Contract-based Registry, and Smart Accounts and can be practically implemented. We compare our mechanism with other solutions and show how it performs better on all security parameters. The paper solves the important problem of secure backup of hardware wallets without compromising the design paradigms associated with it.

In this article, we develop a generic controlled alternate quantum walk model by combining parity-dependent quantum walks with distinct arbitrary memory lengths and propose a hash function (called QHFM-P) based on this model. The statistical properties of the proposed scheme are stable with respect to the coin parameters of the underlying controlled quantum walks, and with certain parameter values, the collision resistance property of QHFM-P is better than that of the state-of-the-art hash functions based on discrete quantum walks. Moreover, the proposed hash function can also maintain near-ideal statistical performance when the input message is of small length. In addition, we derive a type of inappropriate initial states of hash functions based on 1-D one-particle quantum walks (with ordinary shift operator) on cycles, with which all messages will be mapped to the same hash value, regardless of the angles adopted by the coin parameters.