Construction of cryptographically strong boolean functions well suited for symmetric cryptosystems

Download
2013
Ahmed Khan, Mansoor
Boolean functions are amongst the vital ingredients of any symmetric cryptosystem in order to implement principles of confusion and di usion. These are utilized as non-linear filtering functions or combiner functions in LFSR-based stream ciphers and as s-box component functions or non-linear encryption functions in Fiestel structure based block ciphers. Consequently, the cryptographic properties of Boolean functions are amongst the main contributors to the strength of these ciphers against cryptanalysis. The key cryptographic characteristics of Boolean functions include balanced-ness, non-linearity, correlation immunity and resilience, strict avalanche criteria and propagation criteria, and more recently, algebraic degree and algebraic immunity. Hence cryptographically strong Boolean functions are invariably required to posses superior cryptographic characteristics mentioned above in order to e ectively resist all existing and potential cryptanalytic attack techniques. The purpose of this research work is construction of cryptographically strong Boolean functions that can be utilized in symmetric cryptosystems o ering e ective resistance to existing cryptanalysis techniques. During the course of this research work, existing significant methods of construction would be studied and analyzed in depth. Based on this analysis, construction methods for Boolean functions with good cryptographic properties are aimed to be proposed. More focus would be directed to construction methods based on principles of finite fields and that involving combinatorial design theory. The significant constructions based on finite field principles include use of primitive polynomials, primitive elements and block codes, while those based on combinatorial design theory depend on the use of combinatorial objects, such as relative di erence sets, for constructing Perfectly Non-linear (PN) or Almost Perfectly Nonlinear (APN) functions. In the end, the proposed constructions would be analyzed in terms of their cryptographic properties in comparison with other existing constructions in order to evaluate their e cacy for deployment in symmetric cryptosystems.

Suggestions

Hybrid classes of balanced Boolean functions with good cryptographic properties
Khan, Mansoor Ahmed; Özbudak, Ferruh (2014-07-20)
Cryptographically strong Boolean functions play an imperative role in the design of almost every modern symmetric cipher. In this context, the cryptographic properties of Boolean functions, such as non-linearity, algebraic degree, correlation immunity and propagation criteria, are critically considered in the process of designing these ciphers. More recently, with the emergence of algebraic and fast algebraic attacks, algebraic immunity has also been included as an integral property to be considered. As a r...
On constructions and enumeration of bent and semi-bent functions
Koçak, Neşe; Doğanaksoy, Ali; Saygı, Zülfükar; Department of Cryptography (2015)
Bent and semi-bent functions play an important role in cryptography and coding theory. They are widely studied as parts of building blocks in symmetric key cryptosystems because they provide resistance to fast correlation attacks and linear cryptanalysis due to their high nonlinearity. Besides, they can possess other desirable cryptographic properties such as low autocorrelation, propagation criteria, resiliency and high algebraic degree. Therefore, parallel to the advances in cryptanalysis techniques, the ...
Improvement in non-linearity of carlet-feng infinite class of boolean functions
Khan, Mansoor Ahmed; Özbudak, Ferruh (2012-12-01)
In this paper we present a Walsh spectrum based method derived from the genetic hill climbing algorithm to improve the non-linearity of functions belonging to Carlet-Feng infinite class of Boolean functions, without degrading other cryptographic properties they possess. We implement our modified algorithms to verify the results and also present a comparison of the resultant cryptographic properties with the original functions.
Quasi-Cartan companions of elliptic cluster algebras
Velioğlu, Kutlucan; Seven, Ahmet İrfan; Department of Mathematics (2016)
There is an analogy between combinatorial aspects of cluster algebras and diagrams corresponding to skew-symmetrizable matrices. In this thesis, we study quasi-Cartan companions of skew-symmetric matrices in the mutation-class of exceptional elliptic diagrams. In particular, we establish the existence of semipositive admissible quasi-Cartan companions for these matrices and exhibit some other invariant properties.
Contributions on plateaued (vectorial) functions for symmetric cryptography and coding theory
Sınak, Ahmet; Özbudak, Ferruh; Mesnager, Sihem; Department of Cryptography (2017)
Plateaued functions, used to construct nonlinear functions and linear codes, play a significant role in cryptography and coding theory. They can possess various desirable cryptographic properties such as high nonlinearity, low autocorrelation, resiliency, propagation criteria, balanced-ness and correlation immunity. In fact, they provide the best possible compromise between resiliency order and nonlinearity. Besides they resist against linear cryptanalysis and fast correlation attacks due to their low Walsh...
Citation Formats
M. Ahmed Khan, “Construction of cryptographically strong boolean functions well suited for symmetric cryptosystems,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2013.