Week9.

Cryptographic Hash
Functions
Lecture slides by Zhanbolat Seitkulov

March IITU, Information Security 1

Outline
•  We will consider:
–  Hash functions
•  Uses, requirements, security
–  Hash functions based on block ciphers
–  SHA-1, SHA-2, SHA-3

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Hash Functions
•  Converts arbitrary message to fixed size
–  h = H(M)
•  Usually assume hash function is public
•  Hash used to detect changes to message
•  Key properties of a cryptographic hash functions:
–  Computationally infeasible to find data mapping to
specific hash (one-way property)
–  Computationally infeasible to find two different data
with same hash (collision-free property)

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Cryptographic Hash Function

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 Hash Function and
Message
Authentication

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Hash Functions and Digital Signatures

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Other Hash Function Uses
•  To create a one-way password file
–  Store hash of password not actual password
•  For intrusion detection and virus detection
–  Keep & check hash of files on system
•  Pseudorandom function (PRF) or
pseudorandom number generator (PRNG)

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Hash Function Requirements

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Attacks on Hash Functions
•  Have brute-force attacks and cryptanalysis
•  A preimage and second preimage attack
–  Find y such that H(y) equals a given hash value
•  Collision resistance
–  Find two messages x and y with the same hash
H(x) = H(y)

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Hash Function Cryptanalysis
•  Cryptanalytic attacks use some property of
algorithm, so faster than exhaustive search
•  Hash functions use iterative structure
–  Process message in blocks
•  Attacks focus on collisions in function f

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Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA)
•  SHA originally designed by NIST & NSA in 1993
•  was revised in 1995 as SHA-1
•  US standard for use with DSA signature scheme
–  The algorithm is SHA, the standard is SHS
•  Based on design of MD4
•  Produces 160-bit hash values
•  Recent 2005 results on security of SHA-1 has
raised concern on its use in future applications

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Revised Secure Hash Standard
•  NIST issued revision in 2002 (FIPS 180-2)
•  Adds three additional versions of SHA
–  SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512
•  Designed with the compatibility with
increased security provided by the AES cipher
•  Structure and detail is similar to SHA-1
•  Hence analysis should be similar
•  But security levels are rather higher
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SHA Versions

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SHA-512 Compression Function
•  Heart of the algorithm
•  Processing message in 1024-bit blocks
•  Consists of 80 rounds per block
–  Updating a 512-bit buffer
–  Using a 64-bit value derived from the current
message block
–  And a round constant based on cube root of first
80 prime numbers

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SHA Overview

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 Processing
one 1024-
bit block

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Hi Initial Values

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SHA-3
•  In hashes, nothing secret, easy to attack
•  SHA-1 not yet “broken”, but similar to MD5
and SHA-0, so considered insecure
•  SHA-2 (especially SHA-512) seems secure
–  Shares same structure and mathematical
operations as SHA-1, so have concern
•  NIST announced in 2007 a competition for the
SHA-3 – next generation NIST hash function
–  Goal to have in place by 2012 but not fixed

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SHA-3 Requirements
•  Replace SHA-2 with SHA-3 in any use
–  So use same hash sizes
•  Preserve the online nature of SHA-2
–  So must process small blocks (512/1024 bits)
•  Evaluation criteria
–  Security close to theoretical max for hash sizes
–  Cost in time and memory
–  Characteristics such as flexibility and simplicity

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Questions?

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Reading
•  Cryptography and Network Security by
Stallings
–  Chapter 11
•  Sections 11.1, 11.3, 11.5 and 11.6

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 Cryptographic Hash Functions

Lecture slides by Zhanbolat Seitkulov

March IITU, Information Security 22