Algebraic attacks on stream ciphers with Gröbner bases

Abstract

Stream ciphers efficiently encrypt data streams of arbitrary length and are widely deployed in practice, e.g., in mobile phones. Consequently, the development of new mechanisms to design and analyze stream ciphers is one of the major topics in modern cryptography. Algebraic attacks evaluate the security of certain stream ciphers by exploring the question how an attack could be performed by generating and solving appropriate systems of equations. In this text, we give an introduction to algebraic attacks and provide an overview on how and to what extent Gröbner bases are useful in this context. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.