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We show the following hold, unconditionally unless otherwise stated, relative to a random oracle: — There are NP search problems solvable by quantum polynomial-time (QPT) machines but not classical probabilistic polynomial-time (PPT) machines. — There exist functions that are one-way, and even collision resistant, against classical adversaries but are easily inverted quantumly. Similar counterexamples exist for digital signatures and CPA-secure public key encryption (the latter requiring the assumption of a classically CPA-secure encryption scheme). Interestingly, the counterexample does not necessarily extend to the case of other cryptographic objects such as PRGs. — There are unconditional publicly verifiable proofs of quantumness with the minimal rounds of interaction: for uniform adversaries, the proofs are non-interactive, whereas for non-uniform adversaries the proofs are two message public coin. — Our results do not appear to contradict the Aaronson-Ambanis conjecture. Assuming this conjecture, there exist publicly verifiable certifiable randomness, again with the minimal rounds of interaction. By replacing the random oracle with a concrete cryptographic hash function such as SHA2, we obtain plausible Minicrypt instantiations of the above results. Previous analogous results all required substantial structure, either in terms of highly structured oracles and/or algebraic assumptions in Cryptomania and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dual-scrambling scheme that combines position transformation and bit-plane transformation is a popular image encryption scheme. However, such schemes need more key information, and the encryption and decryption processes are complicated. In addition, the existing quantum image dual-scrambling schemes mainly deal with square images. In this paper, we propose a hybrid scrambling encryption scheme for multi-mode quantum image representation (MQIR) images based on random permutation, in which the H × W quantum image is represented in MQIR. A random number generator factor s uniquely associates one of the random permutations of integers from 1 to a positive integer, so as to hybrid scramble both the pixel position and the binarized position of each pixel value. Meanwhile, the quantum circuits and some examples of scrambling are given. Furthermore, various analyses of the performance of this scheme were conducted, including effectiveness, key space, and computational complexity. By modifying the random generation factor to construct multiple binary grayscale images, the simulated results on the IBM Quantum Cloud platform demonstrate that the proposed quantum image encryption scheme is effective. In comparison to existing quantum image dual scrambling schemes, it is both simple and effective, offering a large key space, lower computational complexity, and applicability to non-square quantum images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shor's factorization algorithm (SFA) aims at finding the non-trivial factor of a given composite number, but the algorithm does not always work. In some cases, it has to call back to the beginning of the algorithm to make recalculation. After the analysis of the principle of SFA and the characteristics of RSA public-key cryptography with a series of data calculations, it can be concluded that the random value selected by the algorithm is closely related to whether the obtained period is effective. Therefore, a new optimized scheme is proposed to tackle with this defect from two perspectives: (a) When the a value is a perfect square, the algorithm can be completed with an odd cycle r. (b) When the period r obtained by the randomly selected a value is a multiple of 3 , the algorithm can be completed by modifying the decomposition method to relax the requirements for the period without affecting the complexity of the algorithm. Due to the limitations of hardware in applying the quantum algorithms, the classical algorithm is applied to simulate quantum algorithms to test the success rate of decomposition of some composite numbers. The result indicates the effectiveness of the improved algorithm, which significantly reduces the probability of repeated operations to save the quantum circuit resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the escalation of multimedia data, cloud technology has played a very important role in its management with its promising computing and storage capabilities. Cloud computing leverages high scalability, resources, and on-demand services, which have a remarkable impact on assisting multimedia data storage. Meanwhile, any alteration in the outsourced multimedia data is a severe menace. Numerous researchers have focused on providing validation of integrity through the auditing mechanism. Regrettably, their mechanisms are focused on the traditional public-key cryptosystem and cannot withstand quantum attacks. Additionally, the centralised approach of completely relying on a third-party auditor (TPA) of existing mechanisms may lead to biased auditing results. Hence, employing the advantage of resistance against quantum attack and removing the liability of certificates with lattice cryptography and an identity-based cryptosystem, we have presented a new auditing framework by utilising blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is employed in order to track the activities of the cloud service provider and TPA, resulting less dependency on TPA. Security analysis portrays security of the framework under the random oracle model, which depends is based on the Shortest Integer Solution (SIS) problem of the lattices. Reduced computation, communication and storage overheads with efficient features and performance is observed for the proposed mechanism through analysis conducted with similar mechanisms. As a result, better operability is achieved by the proposed mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In fifth-generation (5G)-based vehicular networks, vehicles share information about the road's condition to make driving safer and alleviate traffic congestion. Given the public nature of the medium, addressing issues of confidentiality and security is of paramount importance. Existing systems are vulnerable to a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack from an attacker or high traffic in a dense area because of the time-consuming and complex operations based on bilinear pair and elliptic curve cryptographies used. In order to protect vehicle-to-vehicle communication in 5G-based vehicular networks from DDoS attacks, a strategy based on the Chebyshev polynomial is proposed in this study. The semi-group and chaotic features of the Chebyshev polynomial are utilised in our proposal. Our solutions also meet all applicable standards for security and privacy, such as node authentication, message integrity, preserving identity privacy, traceability, unlinkability, and resistance to attacks. Finally, our innovation decreases the computational burden to produce a message signature by 66.67% and the burden to verify a signature by 33.33%. However, the size of the message-signature tuple is affected by the communication expenses of our work by 5.00%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proxy signature schemes can be used in all the scenarios where a signer is not able to sign an important message. In some cases which involve a group of proxy signers, the anonymity of the proxy signer is required. We propose the first multivariate anonymous proxy signature scheme over finite field, and discuss all its security properties such as anonymity, unforgeability, verifiability, distinguishability, and undeniability. Additionally, we give a toy example to demonstrate the mathematical functioning of the proposed scheme. We compare our scheme with the existing post-quantum anonymous proxy signature scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As with IoT devices, cloud computation increases its applicability to other areas that use the information and puts it in a commonplace that is necessary for computing and analysis. These devices need the cloud to store and retrieve data since they are unable to store and process data on their own. Cloud computing offers a variety of services to consumers, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. The usage of cloud resources for data storage that may be accessible by all users associated with cloud computing is a key disadvantage of cloud computing. Without disclosing the data's contents, the usage of Public Key Encryptions with Keyword Search (PEKS) secures publicly encrypted keys against third-party search capabilities that are not trustworthy. PEKs provide a security risk every time Interior Keywords Guessing Attacks (IKGA) are discovered in the system since an unauthorized service estimates the keywords in the trapdoor. This issue can be resolved using various methodologies such as the Certificateless Fleshed Public Key Authenticated Encryption of Keyword Search (CL-HPAEKS), which also uses Altered Elliptic Curve Cryptography (MECC), and the Mutation Centred Flower Pollinations Algorithm (CM-FPA), which uses optimization in keys to be improving the algorithm's performance. The system's security is achieved by adding a Message Fragments 5 (MD5) scramble mechanism. The proposed system achieves system security of 96%, and it takes less time to implement than earlier encryption methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are widely acknowledged for their potential as a robust infrastructure for collecting, processing, and transmitting information. Rezaeipour & Barati proposed a hierarchical key management scheme that manages key creation, distribution, and maintenance to provide services like message confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity to wireless sensor networks. As per the assertions posited by the authors, their scheme purportedly exhibits resilience against a spectrum of potential threats. Nevertheless, upon subjecting their scheme to meticulous scrutiny, our analysis revealed vulnerabilities to manifold adversarial strategies, notably including man-in-the-middle attacks, replay attacks, impersonation attacks, and node capture attacks. This scheme fails to establish a secure session key agreement also. In response to these identified shortcomings, this research devised an "Improved Hierarchical Key Management" (IHKM) Scheme aimed at rectifying the deficiencies of Rezaeipour and Barati's scheme (RB scheme). This work proposed an enhanced key management scheme that utilizes a blend of symmetric and asymmetric key cryptography to enhance the security parameters of Hierarchical WSNs. A comprehensive security analysis of the proposed work shows that the IHKM scheme is secure against impersonation attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, replay attacks node capture attacks, Denial-of-Service attacks, and base station bypassing attacks while establishing the mutual key agreement between the area managers and sensor nodes. Moreover, a comparative analysis of the IHKM scheme exhibits notable reductions in energy consumption (62.27% and 49.15%) and memory utilization (39.28%, 23.36%) when compared with the RB scheme and HISCOM schemes respectively. Simultaneously, IHKM contributes to the extension of the network's overall lifespan by 48.78% as compared to HISCOM scheme and 32.63% as compared to compared with the RB scheme, thereby enhancing the efficiency and longevity of the WSN infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum computing provides a revolution in computational competences, leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics to process data in fundamentally novel ways. This paper explores the profound implications of quantum computing on cryptography, focusing on the vulnerabilities it introduces to classical encryption methods such as RSA and ECC, and the emergence of quantum-resistant algorithms. We review the core principles of quantum mechanics, including superposition and entanglement, which underpin quantum computing and cryptography. Additionally, we examine quantum encryption algorithms, particularly Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols and post-quantum cryptographic methods, highlighting their potential to secure communications in the quantum era. This analysis emphasizes the urgent need for developing robust quantum-resistant cryptographic solutions to safeguard sensitive information against the imminent threats posed by advancing quantum technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is a pivotal driving force behind the intelligent transformation of the global industrial system, bringing about a gradual shift in production methods. However, due to users completing remote access and data transmission through open channels, ensuring user legitimacy and data security has become an important factor in IIoT. In addition, resource limited users or devices need to collect and publish corresponding messages while also timely processing instant messages obtained from the network. Leveraging edge computing technology effectively mitigates the transmission time of messages, addressing the challenges of high computing pressure and prolonged response time associated with cloud server computing. Therefore, investigating authentication key agreement based on edge computing in the IIoT environment holds substantial theoretical significance and practical importance. This article introduces an IIoT authentication that ensures both security and efficiency by integrating elliptic curve cryptography and three-factor authentication. Within this scheme, the user and the edge server accomplish security authentication. Through security analysis, the proposed scheme is proven to meet the essential security requirements. Performance analysis shows that it achieves higher security, supports more functions, and achieves lower computational and communication costs compared to related schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for high-quality healthcare services increases to more incredible speeds. Smart healthcare offers an ecosystem of IoT wireless networks, computers and software applications to enable medical tracking, mobility and emergency services through smart wearables. In this ecosystem, security attacks are continuously arisen and sensitive medical data are threatened. Strong cryptographic mechanisms are then crucial for securely processing smart healthcare data. Previously, traditional public key cryptosystems are utilized to address security concerns pertaining to healthcare sector. These cryptosystems provide security under hard problems like discrete logarithmic problem and bilinear pairing which are vulnerable to quantum attacks. In recent years, lattice-based cryptography (LBC) has emerged as a quantum-safe substitute to traditional public-key cryptosystems. In this context, we present a hierarchical healthcare structure where intra-cluster and inter-cluster communication patterns are defined. Then, we propose a security design based on LBC. For intra-cluster communications, a certificateless identity-based Diffie–Hellman key exchange protocol secure under learning with errors hard problem over lattices is designed. It is composed of a registration phase, login phase and a key agreement scheme. To ensure trust, security and interoperability between different healthcare stakeholders defining the inter-cluster communication pattern, post-quantum Blockchain technology is used. Dilithium lattice-based signature scheme is proposed to replace the current ECDSA blockchain signature scheme. The communication and computation costs of the proposed key agreement protocol has been evaluated in comparison with the traditional ECDH-ECDSA key exchange scheme and to an authenticated version of a post-quantum key agreement scheme named SIKE-Dilithium. The obtained results prove the efficacy of our proposal. Moreover, through security analysis, we have demonstrated that the proposed security design ensures security requirements of healthcare application and can effectively resist quantum and classical attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the issue of secure distribution of codebooks in the field of information security, particularly in the domain of covert communication. We propose a codebook distribution technique based on secret sharing. Secret sharing is a method of dividing and storing secrets that can withstand certain levels of external intrusion and internal deception. In this technique, the sender encrypts the codebook using a private key and uploads it to the IPNS. Each recipient can then obtain the public key for downloading the codebook through a mechanism based on password-protected secret sharing. Based on experimental results and security analysis, the scheme exhibits high time efficiency and stable memory usage. Furthermore, it can withstand various attacks, ensuring the security of codebook transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security of the global Certification Authority (CA) system has recently been compromised as a result of attacks on the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Although the CA/Browser (CA/B) Forum publishes compliance requirements for CAs, there are no guarantees that even a commercially successful CA is complying with these recommendations. In this paper, we propose the first systematic CA ranking mechanism that ranks CAs in terms of their adherence to the CA/B Forum and X.509 certificate standards. Unfortunately, there is no consolidated and widely accepted parameter to rank the CAs so we have proposed formula-based rating models and introduced different ranking techniques like Direct, Bayesian, and MarkovChain Ranking. These rankings are applied to a comprehensive dataset of X.509 trust chains gathered during the time period of 2020 to 2023. Our proposed ranking scheme can serve as a criterion for both consumers and enterprises for selecting and prioritizing CAs based on performance as well as adherence to the certificate standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current landscape where quantum algorithms pose a significant threat to conventional digital signature algorithms, code-based digital signature algorithms have emerged as the primary focus of ongoing research in post-quantum cryptography. Digital signatures play a pivotal role in ensuring non-repudiation and authentication, making them an indispensable cryptographic technique. The vulnerability of most digital signature algorithms to quantum attacks have prompted a significant surge in research on code-based digital signature algorithms, which have emerged as a prominent field within post-quantum cryptography. There are generally three distinct approaches to constructing code-based digital signature algorithms: (1) Developing an algorithm that follows the inverse process of the code-based public-key encryption algorithm; (2) Utilizing zero-knowledge identification algorithms in conjunction with the Fiat–Shamir paradigm to formulate a signature algorithm; (3) Constructing a specialized subset of the syndrome space as the foundation for the digital signature algorithm. Chameleon Signature is a non-interactive signature that operates on the hash and signature paradigm, exhibiting comparable efficiency to conventional schemes. Its distinct advantage lies in the fact that the owner of the public key does not necessarily require access to the corresponding secret key within the Chameleon hash algorithm. Notably, Chameleon signatures possess an inherent characteristic of non-transferability, with their validity ascertainable solely by designated recipients. This paper introduces the first Chameleon hash function based on both KKS and HFE schemes, showcasing its superiority over traditional schemes through rank metrics and big fields for enhanced security. The deployment of Chameleon hash functions within hash-and-sign signature schemes introduces a nuanced layer of security and verification flexibility. This study elucidates the implications of integrating Chameleon hash functions into the recipient's public key infrastructure, highlighting the dual capability it affords authorized parties for secure and adaptable verification processes, alongside mechanisms for the detection of unauthorized alterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of security is quite broad and touches the lives of one million people on a daily basis. Those individuals who depend on networks for activities such as banking, shopping, and filing their tax returns may soon face a potentially significant challenge in the form of network security, which will need to be handled in the not-too-distant future. The solution that is being recommended is a combination of two algorithms: The Hybrid Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) algorithm and the Ant Lion Optimization Algorithm. There have been two noteworthy developments in the requirements for information security inside a wireless sensor network over the course of the last several decades. First, prior to the broad use of data processing equipment, the security of information that was regarded useful to a wireless sensor network was largely supplied by physical and administrative precautions. This was the case even after the widespread use of data processing equipment. Hash functions are used by these designs whenever Rebalanced RSA is used to encrypt a message. This helps to guarantee that the integrity of the message is not compromised in any way. It has been found out that this novel method is susceptible to attacks based on selected ciphertext as well as adaptive attacks based on chosen ciphertext. A second strategy, which entails converting the ciphertext into binary format, is also one of the options that are being investigated. The binary format is further compressed and coded, which makes it resistant to a variety of attacks, including adaptive chosen ciphertext assaults, selected ciphertext assaults, and other assaults. To get started, a thorough study project on mapping is carried out in order to establish the mapping of assaults and counterattacks that would be most effective. A brand-new index that goes by the name "Threat Severity Index" (TSI) has been developed with the intention of determining how secure each individual system is on the whole. In addition, the decryption performance of RSA-type cryptosystems is researched and compared with that of other RSA-type cryptosystems in order to identify which cryptosystem provides the quickest decryption time. Last but not least, an overall rating of each system is provided, taking into account both its speed and its level of safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes two schemes from a 2019 work by Liu, Yang, Han and Wang, namely, adapting the McEliece cryptosystem to obtain a new public-key encryption scheme, and designing an efficient CFS-like digital signature. It is shown that the new encryption scheme based on McEliece, even if it has longer public keys, is not more secure than the standard one. The security gap between the original scheme and its modification is presented. Moreover, while the proposed parameters for the digital signature scheme lead to a significant performance improvement, however, they introduce a vulnerability in the protocol. A key-forgery attack using the Support Splitting Algorithm as a subroutine is described, with a study of the computational cost of retrieving the secret key from the public one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robust subgroup multisignature allows any subgroup of signers from a global set to sign a given message on behalf of the whole group, and the individual signatures should be verified before the combination process, which resists poison signature attacks. An emerging application of robust subgroup multisignatures in blockchain is that a qualified subgroup of a global set of users has reached agreement. In the integrated blockchain and edge computing system, the edge server can naturally act as a combiner in multisignatures and help other end devices produce the final aggregate signature. In this paper, we propose a robust subgroup multisignature with one-time public keys in order that has two advantages for solving the signers ordering problem and one-time public key problem simultaneously. Our scheme is a nontrivial extension of Galindo et al.'s robust subgroup multisignature scheme and can be proven unforgeable, robust and chronological in random oracles. Our scheme can also be suitable for the consortium blockchain by adding a noninteractive zero-knowledge (NIZK) proof system for certifying the one-time public keys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, with the rapid development of blockchain technology, the issues of storage load and data security have attracted increasing attention. Due to the immutable nature of data on the blockchain, where data can only be added and not deleted, there is a significant increase in storage pressure on blockchain nodes. In order to alleviate this burden, this paper proposes a blockchain data storage strategy based on a hot and cold block mechanism. It employs a block heat evaluation algorithm to assess the historical and correlation-based heat indicators of blocks, enabling the identification of frequently accessed block data for storage within the blockchain nodes. Conversely, less frequently accessed or "cold" block data are offloaded to cloud storage systems. This approach effectively reduces the overall storage pressure on blockchain nodes. Furthermore, in applications such as healthcare and government services that utilize blockchain technology, it is essential to encrypt stored data to safeguard personal privacy and enforce access control measures. To address this need, we introduce a blockchain data encryption storage mechanism based on threshold secret sharing. Leveraging threshold secret sharing technology, the encryption key for blockchain data is fragmented into multiple segments and distributed across network nodes. These encrypted key segments are further secured through additional encryption using public keys before being stored. This method serves to significantly increase attackers' costs associated with accessing blockchain data. Additionally, our proposed encryption scheme ensures that each block has an associated encryption key that is stored alongside its corresponding block data. This design effectively mitigates vulnerabilities such as weak password attacks. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves efficient encrypted storage of data while concurrently reducing the storage pressure experienced by blockchain nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the quantum era, the advent of quantum computers poses significant threats to the security of current cryptosystems. Therefore, designing quantum-resistant cryptoschemes becomes important to guarantee information security. This work concentrates on the development of the postquantum public key encryption (PKE) scheme. Non-commutative cryptography (NCC) has entered the field of post-quantum cryptography. We utilize the TSPEM problem with asymmetric structures (which serve as a potential candiate for resisting quantum attacks) to construct two PKE schemes which are demonstrated to be CPA security under the DTSPEM assumption. By representing the plaintext as a matrix, these schemes can effectively encrypt a significant amount of information in a single operation. Assuming an equal amount of messages for encryption, the proposed schemes acheive superior efficiency compared to existing PKE schemes. Structurally, our systems exhibit a level of synchronization and coexistence due to the distinct public keys (P) and ciphertexts (C1). The efficiency analysis is conducted by comparing known schemes from the aspect of specific cryptographic indicators. Generally, the proposed ones offer several advantages including provable security, high efficiency, potential quantum-resistant, and relative ease of implementation; along with synchronization and coexistence. Our investigation has established the feasibility of constructing PKE schemes based on the TSPEM problem, specifically for asymmetric communication scenarios. The preliminary results pave the way for further exploration of the TSPEM problem's potential in developing other cryptosystems suitable for quantum computing environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steganography is a technique for hiding secret messages while sending and receiving communications through a cover item. From ancient times to the present, the security of secret or vital information has always been a significant problem. The development of secure communication methods that keep recipient-only data transmissions secret has always been an area of interest. Therefore, several approaches, including steganography, have been developed by researchers over time to enable safe data transit. In this review, we have discussed image steganography based on Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) algorithm, etc. We have also discussed image steganography based on multiple hashing algorithms like the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) method, the Blowfish technique, and the hash-least significant bit (LSB) approach. In this review, a novel method of hiding information in images has been developed with minimal variance in image bits, making our method secure and effective. A cryptography mechanism was also used in this strategy. Before encoding the data and embedding it into a carry image, this review verifies that it has been encrypted. Usually, embedded text in photos conveys crucial signals about the content. This review employs hash table encryption on the message before hiding it within the picture to provide a more secure method of data transport. If the message is ever intercepted by a third party, there are several ways to stop this operation. A second level of security process implementation involves encrypting and decrypting steganography images using different hashing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media blockchain is emerging as a promising solution to deal with privacy issues, by putting user privacy in edge nodes rather than centralized nodes. Under the protection of information encryption, only those who have cryptographic keys can get access to key information. This work aims at multimedia information in social media blockchain and utilizes the RSA encryption mechanism to construct the information encryption system. Due to the resilience of biometric features, the biometric cryptographic keys are not easy to be fabricated. Thus, this paper proposes a biometric keys-enhanced multimedia encryption algorithm for social media blockchain. First of all, the wiener filter is adopted to make some preprocessing operations to images, such as noise reduction. On this basis, the discrete wavelet transform is adopted to extract feature representation from images, and nonlinear approximation of contourlet transform is adopted to make feature fusion. Next, cryptographic keys can be generated from the fused biometric feature vectors to encrypt biometric data. Finally, some simulation experiments are conducted to evaluate performance of the proposal from three aspects: key generation time, security level and encryption-decryption time complexity. For key generation time, processing speed of the proposal is approximately 1–2 ms per sample. For security level, the proposal can reach an index value beyond 95% which is higher than comparison methods. For encryption-decryption time complexity, the proposal is about 30% lower than comparison methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Password-based authentication is one of the most prevailing access control mechanism. Typical password-authenticated key exchange (PAKE) protocols are single-server settings and are therefore vulnerable to server compromise attack. To defend against such attack, multi-server PAKE schemes have been advanced, but most of which are built on non-quantum-secure hardness assumptions. Lattice-based cryptosystems are regarded as the most promising one for post-quantum eara by NIST, while the known multi-server password-based authentication solution over lattices achieves merely key transport and is public key infrastructure (PKI)-based, resulting in low efficiency and poor deployability. In this work, we resort to distributed smooth projective hash function (SPHF) to bridge the gap between multi-server PAKE protocol and quantum-security. We first design an exact SPHF and derive the first distributed SPHF over lattices by leveraging the additive homomorphic property of the strong learning with errors (LWE) problem. In particular, the relevant parameters of the public key encryption (PKE) scheme it predicates on are identified, thus eliminating the influence of incomplete lattice homomorphism on the correctness of our SPHFs. Pertinent lattice-based multi-server PAKE protocols are further proposed on both transparent and non-transparent transmission modes by integrating our distributed SPHF into the multi-server framework of Raimondo and Gennaro (EUROCRYPT'03). Our PAKE constructions are able to resist both quantum and sever compromise attacks as well as avoid the expensive cryptographic primitives, including non-interactive zero knowledge (NIZK) proofs, signature/verification, secret sharing and fully homomorphic encryption. Experimental results demonstrate that our SPHFs and PAKE protocols offer better efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exponential growth of Internet-of-Things (IoT) has raised several data security risks to the Fog–Cloud architecture. The performance and the computation cost of security algorithms hinder providing a secure real-time environment for IoT. This study proposes a novel two-layer cryptosystem, Cryptographic Harris Hawks Optimization (CryptoHHO), for Fog–Cloud architecture that reduces security overheads while maintaining confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The first layer of the proposed CryptoHHO is responsible for generating a highly randomized key using HHO to optimize Shannon entropy incorporation with transfer functions and a binarization mechanism. The second layer of CryptoHHO introduces a novel encipher model for encryption and decryption based on the Shift cipher, XOR operator, and an instance of crossover and mutation. The job execution avenue, i.e., Fog or cloud computing, is selected depending on the size of IoT requests, security sensitivity, and time sensitivity. The performance of CryptoHHO is compared against other emerging bio-inspired cryptographic algorithms. It was found that the CryptoHHO performs better than CryptoSSA, CryptoGWO, CryptoPSO, and CryptoWOA algorithms based on entropy, key generation time, transfer function comparison, execution time, and throughput. Further, the robustness of CryptoHHO is examined by various security analyses like brute-force attack resistivity, confusion-diffusion, CIA achievement, and statistical evaluations suggested by NIST and FIPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent rank-based attacks have reduced the security of Rainbow, which is one of the multi-layer UOV signatures, below the NIST security requirements by speeding up iterative kernel-finding operations using classical mathematics techniques. If quantum algorithms are applied to perform these iterative operations, the rank-based attacks may be more threatening to multi-layer UOV, including Rainbow. In this paper, we propose a quantum rectangular MinRank attack called the Q-rMinRank attack, the first quantum approach to key recovery attacks on multi-layer UOV signatures. Our attack is a general model applicable to multi-layer UOV signature schemes, and in this paper, we provide examples of its application to Rainbow and the Korean TTA standard, HiMQ. We design two quantum oracle circuits to find the kernel in consideration of the depth-width trade-off of quantum circuits. One is to reduce the width of the quantum circuits using qubits as a minimum, and the other is to reduce the depth using parallelization instead of using a lot of qubits. By designing quantum circuits to find kernels with fewer quantum resources and complexity by adding mathematical techniques, we achieve quadratic speedup for the MinRank attack to recover the private keys of multi-layer UOV signatures. We also estimate quantum resources for the designed quantum circuits and analyze quantum complexity based on them. The width-optimized circuit recovers the private keys of Rainbow parameter set V with only 1089 logical qubits. The depth-optimized circuit recovers the private keys of Rainbow parameter set V with a quantum complexity of 2 174 , which is lower than the complexity of 2 221 recovering the secret key of AES-192, which provides the same security level as parameter set III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Collaboration between IoT end‐devices and edge servers or idle devices enables offloading of computational tasks, providing an effective solution to address inherent limitations in computational resources, storage capacity, and energy efficiency. However, IoT network openness introduces security challenges, such as privacy breaches, data security, and "free‐riding" attack. Securing computational offloading is crucial for service quality and reliability. In this article, we introduce a comprehensive approach to address these challenges. First, trust metrics are performed at the level of resource requester and resource provider respectively, and the trust level of both parties is matched to reduce the adverse effects of malicious devices or servers on computing offloading. Then, a distributed decision‐making method based on game theory is designed to improve the performance of the algorithm and avoid the single‐point‐of‐failure problem through the joint participation of multiple edge servers in decision‐making. Finally, a blockchain‐based task offloading process control strategy is used to deal with the "free‐riding" attack. The results of simulation experiments show the effectiveness of our proposed offloading decision‐making method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video steganography approach has been widely used to preserve the secret information while transmitting through the internet. This approach has become attractive among many researchers due to its feature high Embedding Capacity (EC). In recent years, numerous methods are developed to secure the data. However, these methods still face problem in the area of imperceptibly and finding less distortion regions that is suitable for data hiding. To overcome this issue, a novel edge based Moving Objects (MO), compression technology, encryption method and interpolation data hiding technique based on moving regions detection that achieves less distortion is proposed in this paper. In the proposed system, first the video gets separated into frames, and edge based MO detection technique with graph system is used to identify the missing vertices. Then, compression technology with Rank Approximation (RA) and Prediction Error (PE) is applied for every frame. Next, we propose encryption scheme for MO which combines threshold and Pixel Value Differencing (PVD) to shuffle pixels, and non-MO applies circular shift encryption that preserve the pixels suitable for data hiding. Finally, the frames are up-scaled using weight based interpolation technique and data is hidden with various range inside Red Green Blue (RGB) channel by finding rough and smooth pixels. To ensure reversibility, any one channel is kept as the indication pixel for each pixel to store MO pixels. Experimental results reveals that the proposed method has significant improvement in the areas of compression level, MO identification and Quality Parameter (QP) testing. Moreover, Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), EC, Regular Singular (RS) and PVD histogram analysis attacks obtained on the proposed method performs better than the other state-of-the-art techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel quantum-safe key encapsulation algorithm, called Multivariate Polynomial Public Key (MPPK), was recently proposed by Kuang, Perepechaenko, and Barbeau. Security of the MPPK key encapsulation mechanism does not rely on the prime factorization or discrete logarithm problems. It builds upon the NP-completeness of the modular Diophantine equation problem, for which there are no known efficient classical or quantum algorithms. Hence, it is resistant to known quantum computing attacks. The private key of MPPK comprises a pair of multivariate polynomials. In a companion paper, we analyzed the performance of MPPK when these polynomials are quadratic. The analysis highlighted the MPPK high decapsulation time. We found that, while maintaining the security strength, the polynomials can be linear. Considerable performance gains are obtained for the decapsulation process. In this article, we benchmark the linear case and compare the results with the previous quadratic case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing is an on-demand virtual-based technology to develop, configure, and modify applications online through the internet. It enables the users to handle various operations such as storage, back-up, and recovery of data, data analysis, delivery of software applications, implementation of new services and applications, hosting websites and blogs, and streaming of audio and video files. Thereby, it provides us many benefits although it is backlashed due to problems related to cloud security like data leakage, data loss, cyber attacks, etc. To address the security concerns, researchers have developed a variety of authentication mechanisms. This means that the authentication procedure used in the suggested method is multi-levelled. As a result, a better QKD method is offered to strengthen cloud security against different types of security risks. Key generation for enhanced QKD is based on the ABE public key cryptography approach. Here, an approach named CPABE is used in improved QKD. The Improved QKD scored the reduced KCA attack ratings of 0.3193, this is superior to CMMLA (0.7915), CPABE (0.8916), AES (0.5277), Blowfish (0.6144), and ECC (0.4287), accordingly. Finally, this multi-level authentication using an improved QKD approach is analysed under various measures and validates the enhancement over the state-of-the-art models [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Updatable encryption (UE) is a cryptosystem that allows clients to outsource encrypted data to untrusted servers and periodically rotating the encryption keys. The server can update the encrypted data from an old key to a new key using an update token generated by the client without revealing any information about the plaintext. In this paper, we propose a new security model for UE that considers the possibility of an adversary corrupting all update tokens and keys of the past epochs. We show that our security model is consistent with the actual application scenarios of UE. We construct the first UE scheme based on NTRU, named NTRU-UE. Our scheme employs the generalized key-switching technique to achieve backward-leak uni-directional key updates and uni-directional ciphertext updates. Additionally, we use the ciphertext-masking technique to achieve random-update. We prove that the new scheme satisfies the security requirements in our model. Furthermore, we evaluate the security levels of our scheme in both classical and quantum models. We also present the implementation efficiency of our scheme and the number of times the key can be updated under our recommended parameters. These results fill the long-term gap in theory and practical application of UE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance security in the semiconductor industry's globalized production, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) proposed an authentication protocol under the Supply Chain Hardware Integrity for Electronics Defense (SHIELD) program. This protocol integrates a secure hardware root-of-trust, known as a dielet, into integrated circuits (ICs). The SHIELD protocol, combined with the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in counter mode, named CTR-SHIELD, targets try-and-check attacks. However, CTR-SHIELD is vulnerable to desynchronization attacks on its counter blocks. To counteract this, we introduce the DTR-SHIELD protocol, where DTR stands for double counters. DTR-SHIELD addresses the desynchronization issue by altering the counter incrementation process, which previously solely relied on truncated serial IDs. Our protocol adds a new AES encryption step and requires the dielet to transmit an additional 100 bits, ensuring more robust security through active server involvement and message verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edge computing serves as a critical intermediary for secure data exchange between IoT devices and data centres in healthcare, where the protection of sensitive patient data is paramount. This study presents UdesMec, a comprehensive edge computing framework designed for efficient and secure data storage and processing in such contexts. Focusing on the challenge of implementing robust data security models in the presence of limited resources at edge nodes, UdesMec employs a unified encryption approach that is particularly suited for expert knowledge-based prediction of complex critical medical events. Using secret sharing and homomorphic encryption, it ensures the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive patient data transmitted by IoT devices, while enabling efficient computation of prediction algorithms on a cloud server. The experimental evaluation confirms the strong encryption performance and the ease of use of UdesMec, positioning it as a promising solution for the secure and reliable prediction of complex critical medical events in healthcare systems based on edge computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and its application across various sectors has led to increased interconnectivity and data sharing between devices and sensors. While this has brought convenience to users, it has also raised concerns about information security, including data security and identity authentication. IIoT devices are particularly vulnerable to attacks due to their lack of robust key management systems, efficient authentication processes, high fault tolerance, and other issues. To address these challenges, technologies such as blockchain and the formal analysis of security protocols can be utilized. And blockchain-based Industrial Internet of Things (BIIoT) is the new direction. These technologies leverage the strengths of cryptography and logical reasoning to provide secure data communication and ensure reliable identity authentication and verification, thereby becoming a crucial support for maintaining the security of the Industrial Internet. In this paper, based on the theory of the strand space attack model, we improved the Fiber Channel Password Authentication Protocol (FACP) security protocol in the network environment based on symmetric cryptography and asymmetric cryptography. Specifically, in view of the problem that the challenge value cannot reach a consensus under the symmetric cryptography system, and the subject identity cannot reach a consensus under the asymmetric cryptography system, an improved protocol is designed and implemented to meet the authentication requirements, and the corresponding attack examples are shown. Finally, the effectiveness and security of the protocol were verified by simulating different networking environments. The improved protocol has shown an increase in efficiency compared with the original protocol across three different network configurations. There was a 6.43% increase in efficiency when centralized devices were connected to centralized devices, a 5.81% increase in efficiency when centralized devices were connected to distributed devices, and a 6.32% increase in efficiency when distributed devices were connected to distributed devices. Experimental results show that this protocol can enhance the security and efficiency of communication between devices and between devices and nodes (servers, disks) in commonly used Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) environments without affecting the identity authentication function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we define expanded LRPC codes from LRPC codes with a decoding algorithm using the one of the underlying LRPC codes. Next, we propose to use these codes for cryptography by deriving two cryptosystems in a McEliece setting. in order to reduce the key sizes, we use a generator matrix in systematic form for the first scheme, and an m − order quasi-cyclic LRPC code that we define for the second scheme. The obtained code has a very poor structure and is more likely to be a random linear code. Next, we give some security parameters and compare the key sizes of our public key with the key sizes of some cryptosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the surge in cloud storage popularity, more individuals are choosing to store large amounts of data on remote cloud service providers (CSPs) to save local storage resources. However, users' primary worries revolve around maintaining data integrity and authenticity. Consequently, several cloud auditing methods have emerged to address these concerns. Many of these approaches rely on traditional public-key cryptography systems or are grounded in identity-based cryptography systems or certificateless cryptography systems. However, they are vulnerable to the increased costs linked with certificate management, key escrow, or the significant expenses of establishing a secure channel, respectively. To counter these limitations, Li et al. introduced a certificate-based cloud auditing protocol (LZ22), notable for its minimal tag generation overhead. Nonetheless, this protocol exhibits certain security vulnerabilities. In this paper, we devise a counterfeiting technique that allows the CSP to produce a counterfeit data block with an identical tag to the original one. Our counterfeiting method boasts a 100% success rate ∀ data block and operates with exceptional efficiency. The counterfeiting process for a single block of 10 kB, 50 kB, and 100 kB takes a maximum of 0.08 s, 0.51 s, and 1.04 s, respectively. By substituting the exponential component of homomorphic verifiable tags (HVTs) with non-public random elements, we formulate a secure certificate-based cloud auditing protocol. In comparison to the LZ22 protocol, the average tag generation overhead of our proposed protocol is reduced by 6.80%, 13.78%, and 8.66% for data sizes of 10 kB, 50 kB, and 100 kB, respectively. However, the auditing overhead of our proposed protocol shows an increase. The average overhead rises by 3.05%, 0.17%, and 0.45% over the LZ22 protocol's overhead for data sizes of 10 kB, 50 kB, and 100 kB, correspondingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public key encryption with keyword search (PEKS) has long been a promising way for secure data validation, which tells one whether the coming entry contains the designated keyword without decryption. Despite the visible confidentiality benefits, existing PEKS schemes suffer serious performance issues while deployed in real-world applications. Specifically, when multiple keys/keywords are suggested, each coming datum should be tested repeatedly until all trapdoors have been verified. In this paper, we propose a new cryptographic primitive called multi-writer searchable encryption with aggregated keywords search that supports subset encrypted data validation. Specifically, one can perform fewer operations to identify all suggested keywords, thereby reducing the verifying cost. To demonstrate the advantages of the proposed scheme, extensive experiments are conducted on synthetic datasets, and the results show that our solution achieves considerable performance improvements with prior works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 5G, users can easily enjoy services by accessing the edge devices (EDs) deployed around the base stations. Generally, due to the uneven distribution and mobility of users, one ED is required to serve multiple users simultaneously, that results in the ED overload, seriously affecting the quality of experience (QoE) of the users. By responding to users' requests, service migration realizes the cross edge device migrations, that dynamically provides services for mobile users, which effectively improves the resource utilization rate of edge servers and the QoE of users. However, during the service migrations, malicious users may deploy pseudo base stations, gateways and other devices to illegally eavesdrop or tamper with user service data, that causes user information loss or disclosure. To prevent these security issues, a fountain-coding based cooperative jamming strategy is proposed in this paper. Specifically, the fountain coding technology is introduced to construct a three-node transmission model, including an original node, a target node and a malicious node, to realize the secure data transmission process in service migration. Besides, a group of relay nodes are employed to carry out cooperative jamming, that deteriorate the illegal eavesdropping quality of malicious nodes on service data. Then secrecy rate and outage probability are utilized to evaluate the security and reliability of the whole service migration. Finally, the theoretical analysis is shown by simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of big data and cloud computing, more and more data owners store their data with encrypted form in the cloud server. To retrieve some data they are interested in, an important technology called searchable encryption can be adopted. Sometimes, the encrypted data are desired to be shared to some users by the data owners without destroying the user privacy. To address this problem, many works of delegated searchable encryption (DSE) have been studied. However, in the existing DSE schemes, the delegated users can make keyword search over the encrypted data without any restrictions. In some systems such as E-health record system in which the data are sensitive, it is desired that the delegated users can only make search with some specified keywords designated by the data owners. In this work, we present an efficient solution to this problem and give a concrete construction. Then we show that our construction is efficient and practical for real applications by experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modified RSA provides high efficiency against attacks and, as a result, it is considered the ideal choice for many applications. In this paper, we introduce an alternative to the modified RSA key encryption system called TPRSA, based on Tri-Cartesian algebra and polynomials, by modifying the mathematical structure of text encryption and decryption keys to obtain a high level of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, unlike other power sequences, we define new ones in the integer and integer-valued polynomial module. We call these sequences the power-generalized k -Horadam sequence in the integer module and the power-generalized k -Horadam sequence in the integer-valued polynomial module. Using these sequences, we rebuild the ElGamal cryptosystem and then obtain a new cryptographic method by combining this and symmetric systems. We provide an encryption example where our method is applied. Finally, we see the advantages of the new cryptographic method when we compare the obtained new cryptographic method with some of the asymmetric cryptographic systems such as RSA and ElGamal. And we achieve that new cryptographic method that has more advantageous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IPv6-based IoT networks, i.e. 6LoWPAN network, require authentication for security. The existing authentication schemes on symmetric-key based approaches for 6LoWPAN consume huge computational and processing overhead in the literature. In a large network, pre-deployment of the key leads to huge memory consumption due to storing many keys. Furthermore, in asymmetric key cryptography, operations with the public key are computationally expensive, which is unsuitable for resource-constrained devices. We proposed a lightweight key exchange and authentication scheme for 6LoWPAN to mutually authenticate the sensor nodes, the gateway, and the server with less computational overhead and without compromising any security credentials. The authentication scheme helps to generate a session key without storing any secrets in the 6LoWPAN devices. We utilized a one-way hash function and XOR operation to reduce overhead in multi-hop communication. The AVISPA verification tool and the formal verification show that the proposed method is resistant to well-known attacks. The proposed scheme outperforms relevant methods in computational overhead, communication cost, and computation time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the significant "roles" within financial complex networks and their stability is of great importance for preventing financial risks. On one hand, this paper initially constructs a complex network model of the stock market based on mutual information theory and threshold methods, combined with the closing price returns of stocks. It then analyzes the basic topological characteristics of this network and examines its stability under random and targeted attacks by varying the threshold values. On the other hand, using systemic risk entropy as a metric to quantify the stability of the stock market, this paper validates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as a widespread, unexpected event on network stability. The research results indicate that this complex network exhibits small-world characteristics but cannot be strictly classified as a scale-free network. In this network, key roles are played by the industrial sector, media and information services, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, transportation, and utilities. Upon reducing the threshold, the network's resilience to random attacks is correspondingly strengthened. Dynamically, from 2000 to 2022, systemic risk in significant industrial share markets significantly increased. From a static perspective, the period around 2019, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, experienced the most drastic fluctuations. Compared to the year 2000, systemic risk entropy in 2022 increased nearly sixtyfold, further indicating an increasing instability within this complex network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, smart healthcare and Electronic Health Record (EHR) play a significant role in simplifying the experience of medical treatment and cuts down the trivial work of paramedics. However, this poses significant challenges for organizations, including the management, transfer and protection of EHR which is vital for correct detection. To overcome these challenges, cloud computing presented which offers various attractive features for EHR management such as data availability, elasticity, and ubiquitous computation. However, the use of cloud computing introduces confidentiality and privacy concerns which can lead to human health threat. A trivial solution for this problem is encryption which makes searching a desired document infeasible, more specifically in big data scenarios. Although searchable encryption is a candidate solution, it suffers from keyword guessing attacks, malicious service providers, lack of trust, data integrity, and fairness. In this paper, we propose BACASE-SH framework that leverages blockchain technology to EHR integrity and availability insurance, fair payment, and establish trust among the involved parties. Moreover, we present a certificate-less authenticated asymmetric searchable encryption scheme to address challenges such as data owner (patient) and data user (physician) identity and keyword guessing attacks. The scheme is implemented using a smart contract, and the evaluation results show its efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authenticated key agreement (AKA) method used in the Internet of Things (IoT) provides identity authentication and agreed symmetric keys to encrypt large amounts of communication messages for devices and servers. With the rapid development of quantum computers and quantum algorithms, classical cryptographic algorithms become vulnerable to attacks by adversaries, leading to significant risks in IoT communication systems. Numerous lattice-based authentication key agreement (AKA) schemes have emerged to fortify communication systems against quantum attacks. However, due to the large size of the lattice cryptography public key, an excessive number of communication rounds can cause significant time delays. Meanwhile, many current lattice-based AKA schemes rely on weak security models like BR, CK, and ROR. These models can only capture partial adversary attacks. To this end, we propose a lower communication rounds lattice-based anonymous authenticated key agreement (LA-AKA) protocol under the seCK model. This protocol aims to achieve lower communication rounds under the robust security model, ensuring heightened security and efficiency within IoT communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certificateless Proxy Signature (CLPS) offers a comprehensive authentication mechanism to ensure the optimal solutions from modern forgery attacks in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoTs) environment. CLPS is part of certificateless public key cryptography (CL-PKC) and has the benefits of eradicating many issues like key distribution problem. Although costly computational processing capabilities are consumed by smart devices during authentication process. This article proposed an authentication scheme for CLPS by using the mathematical cryptographic curve concepts of Hyper Elliptic Curve (HEC) to provide a secure and optimized communication approach in IIoTs environment. The arises key distribution problem in CLPS is also fixed. The scrutinized security analysis of proxy signature and delegation signature were performed to tackle different attacks like Machine-in-the-middle Attack (MiTM), Replay Attack, Key Replacement Attack, Impersonation Attack, and Chosen Message Attack. Due to HEC-DLP the forgery attack cannot succeeded. Finally, the proposed work is formally verified through the AVISPA tool. The comprehensive performance evaluation shows that the total computational cost is reduced to 49.48% and the communication overhead size is reduced to 49.57% with a comparative analysis of existing schemes. Thus, the proposed approach eradicates key distribution problems with an equal security level of RSA and ECC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) enables computation directly on encrypted data. This property is desirable for outsourced computation of sensitive data as it relies solely on the underlying security of the cryptosystem and not in access control policies. Even though FHE is still significantly slower than unencrypted computation, practical times are possible for applications easily representable as low-order polynomials, since most FHE schemes support modular addition and multiplication over ciphertexts. If, however, an application cannot be expressed with low-order polynomials, then Boolean logic must be emulated. This bit-level arithmetic enables any computation to be performed homomorphically. Nevertheless, as it runs on top of the natively supported modular arithmetic, it has poor performance, which hinders its use in the majority of scenarios. In this work, we propose Bridging, a technique that allows conversion from bit-level to modular arithmetic and vice-versa. This enables the use of the comprehensive computation provided by bit-level arithmetic and the performance of modular arithmetic within the same application. Experimental results show that Bridging can lead to 1-2 orders of magnitude performance improvement for tested benchmarks and two real-world applications: URL denylisting and genotype imputation. Bridging performance comes from two factors: reduced number of operations and smaller multiplicative depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cache Side-Channel Attacks (CSCAs) have been haunting most processor architectures for decades now. Existing approaches to mitigation of such attacks have certain drawbacks, namely software mishandling, performance overhead, and low throughput due to false alarms. Hence, "mitigation only when detected" should be the approach to minimize the effects of such drawbacks. We propose a novel methodology of fine-grained detection of timing-based CSCA using a hardware-based detection module. We discuss the design, implementation, and use of our proposed detection module in processor architectures. Our approach successfully detects attacks that flush secret victim information from cache memory like Flush+Reload, Flush+Flush, Prime+Probe, Evict+Probe, and Prime+Abort, commonly known as cache timing attacks. Detection is on time with minimal performance overhead. The parameterizable number of counters used in our module allows detection of multiple attacks on multiple sensitive locations simultaneously. The fine-grained nature ensures negligible false alarms, severely reducing the need for any unnecessary mitigation. The proposed work is evaluated by synthesizing the entire detection algorithm as an attack detection block, Edge-CaSCADe, in a RISC-V processor as a target example. The detection results are checked under different workload conditions with respect to the number of attackers and the number of victims having RSA-, AES-, and ECC-based encryption schemes like ECIES, and on benchmark applications like MiBench and Embench. More than 98% detection accuracy within 2% of the beginning of an attack can be achieved with negligible false alarms. The detection module has an area and power overhead of 0.9% to 2% and 1% to 2.1% for the targeted RISC-V processor core without cache for one to five counters, respectively. The detection module does not affect the processor critical path and hence has no impact on its maximum operating frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper presents a modified blind and robust image watermarking scheme that combines dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DTCWT) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) domains. A key challenge for researchers is to determine the optimal locations for embedding watermarks in the low-frequency coefficients of the hybrid domains, ensuring both imperceptibility and security. To identify the most effective sequence for the watermark embedding process, a differential approach is implemented on two correlated DCT-transformed vectors derived from DTCWT wavelet low-frequency coefficients. The watermark data does not need to be extracted from the original image. The proposed scheme aims to assess the efficiency improvement against various image processing attacks. We utilized fifteen grayscale images from the UCI-sipi image database, each with a size of 512 × 512 pixels, to evaluate the proposed scheme. The experimental results demonstrate that our scheme outperforms existing schemes in common image attacks such as geometric attacks, compression, filtering, and noise addition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socialist millionaire problem aims to compare the equality of two inputs from two users while keeping their inputs undisclosed to anyone. Quantum private comparison (QPC), whose security relies on the principles of quantum mechanics, can solve this problem and achieve the information-theoretic security of information processing. The current QPC protocols mainly utilize the bitwise XOR operation to implement the comparison, leading to insufficient security. In this paper, we propose a rotation operation-based QPC protocol to solve the socialist millionaire problem, which utilizes Bell states as quantum resources and rotation operations for classical calculations. The proposed protocol only utilizes easy-to-implement technologies such as Bell states, rotation operations, and Bell-basis measurements, making it more practical. The analysis demonstrates that our protocol can meet both the correctness and security requirements. Compared with the existing QPC protocols, our protocol has improved performance in terms of practicability and security. [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]