Applying time-memory-data trade-off to meet-in-the-middle attack

Abstract

In this paper, we present several new attacks on multiple encryption block ciphers based on the meet-in-the-middle attack. In the first attack (GDD-MTM), we guess a certain number of secret key bits and apply the meet-in-the-middle attack on multiple ciphertexts. The second attack (TMTO-MTM) is derived from applying the time-memory trade-off attack to the meet-in-the-middle attack on a single ciphertext. We may also use rainbow chains in the table construction to get the Rainbow-MTM attack. The fourth attack (BS-MTM) is defined by combining the time-memory-data trade-off attack proposed by Biryukov and Shamir to the meet-in-the-middle attack on multiple ciphertexts. Lastly, for the final attack (TMD-MTM), we apply the TMTO-Data curve, which demonstrates the general methodology for multiple data trade-offs, to the meet-in-the-middle attack. GDD-MTM requires no pre-processing, but the attack complexity is high while memory requirement is low. In the last four attacks, pre-processing is required but we can achieve lower (faster) online attack complexity at the expense of more memory in comparison with the GDD-MTM attack. To illustrate how the attacks may be used, we applied them in the cryptanalysis of triple DES. In particular, for the BS-MTM attack, we managed to achieve pre-computation and data complexity which are much lower while maintaining almost the same memory and online attack complexity, as compared to a time-memory-data trade-off attack by Biryukov et al. at SAC 2005. In all, our new methodologies offer viable alternatives and provide more flexibility in achieving time-memory-data trade-offs. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.