χ2 cryptanalysis of the SEAL encryption algorithm

Abstract

SEAL was first introduced in [1] by Rogaway and Coppersmith as a fast software-oriented encryption algorithm. It is a pseudorandom function which stretches a short index into a much longer pseudorandom string under control of a secret key pre-processed into internal tables. In this paper we first describe an attack of a simplified version of SEAL, which provides large parts of the secret tables from approximately 224 algorithm computations. As far as the original algorithm is concerned, we construct a test capable of distinguishing SEAL from a random function using approximately 230 computations. Moreover, we describe how to derive some bits of information about the secret tables. These results were confirmed by computer experiments.