Security of Hash Functions and MACs

Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /

3/23/2020 1
Security of Hash Functions and MACs
 Security of Hash Functions and MACs
Two categories:
brute-force attacks and cryptanalysis.
Brute-Force Attacks
The nature of brute-force attacks differs somewhat for hash
functions and MACs.

Hash Functions:

One-way: For any given code h, it is computationally infeasible to

find x such that H(x) = h.
● Weak collision resistance: For any given block x, it is
computationally infeasible to find y ≠ x with H(y) = H(x).
● Strong collision resistance: It is computationally infeasible to
find any pair (x, y) such that H(x) = H(y).

Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /

3/23/2020 2
Security of Hash Functions and MACs
 Security of Hash Functions and MACs

For a hash code of length n, the level of effort required is

Message Authentication Codes:

A brute-force attack on a MAC is a more difficult
undertaking because it requires known message-MAC pairs. To
attack a hash code, we can proceed in the following way. Security
of Hash Functions and Macs fixed message x with n-bit hash code
h = H(x), a brute-force method of finding a collision is to pick a
random bit string y and check if H(y) = H(x). The attacker can do
this repeatedly off line.
Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /
3/23/2020 3
Security of Hash Functions and MACs
 Security of Hash Functions and MACs

Security property of a MAC algorithm:

Computation resistance: Given one or more text-MAC

pairs [xi, C(K, xi)], it is computationally
infeasible to compute any text-MAC pair [x, C(K, x)] for any new
input x≠xi. In other words, the attacker would like to come up with
the valid MAC code for a given message x.
There are two lines of attack possible: Attack the key space and
attack the MAC value. If an attacker can determine the MAC key,
then it is possible to generate a valid MAC value for any input
x. Suppose the key size is k bits and that the attacker has one
known text-MAC pair. Then the attacker can compute the n-bit
MAC on the known text for all possible keys. At least one key is
guaranteed to produce the correct MAC, namely, the valid key
that was initially used to produce the known text-MAC pair.
Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /
3/23/2020 4
Security of Hash Functions and MACs
 Security of Hash Functions and MACs

Security property of a MAC algorithm (Cont):

This phase of the attack takes a level of effort proportional

to 2k However, as was described earlier, because the MAC is a
many-to-one mapping, there may be other keys that produce the
correct value.
Thus, if more than one key is found to produce the correct value,
additional text-MAC pairs must be tested. It can be shown that
the level of effort drops off rapidly with each additional text-MAC
pair and that the overall level of effort is roughly 2k.

Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /

3/23/2020 5
Security of Hash Functions and MACs
 Cryptanalysis

As with encryption algorithms, cryptanalytic attacks on hash

functions and MAC algorithms seek to exploit some property of the
algorithm to perform some attack other than an exhaustive search.
The way to measure the resistance of a hash or MAC algorithm to
cryptanalysis is to compare its strength to the effort required for a
brute-force attack. That is, an ideal hash or MAC algorithm will
require a cryptanalytic effort greater than or equal to the brute-
force effort.

Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /

3/23/2020 6
Security of Hash Functions and MACs
 Hash Functions

The hash algorithm involves repeated use of a compression

function, f, that takes two inputs and produces an n-bit output. At
the start of hashing, the chaining variable has an initial value that is
specified as part of the algorithm. The final value of the chaining
variable is the hash value. Often, b > n; hence the term compression.
Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /
3/23/2020 7
Security of Hash Functions and MACs
 Hash Functions

CVo = IV = initial n-bit value

CVi = f(CVi1, Yi1) 1≤ i ≤L
H(M) = CVL.
where the input to the hash function is a message M consisting of
the blocks Yo, Y1,..., YL1.

Message Authentication Codes

There is much more variety in the structure of MACs than in

hash functions, so it is difficult to generalize about the cryptanalysis
of MACs. Further, far less work has been done on developing such
attacks.

Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /

3/23/2020 8
Security of Hash Functions and MACs
 Summarize

Muthukumar.A / ASP/ ECE / CNS / UNIT III /

3/23/2020 9
Security of Hash Functions and MACs