Building secure and fast cryptographic hash functions using programmable cellular automata

Abstract

Cryptographic hash functions have recently brought an exceptional research interest. With the increasing number of attacks against the widely used functions as MD5, SHA-1 and RIPEMD, the need to consider new hash functions design and conception strategies becomes crucial. In this paper, we propose a fast and efficient hash function using programmable cellular automata that are very suitable for cryptographic applications due to their chaotic and complex behavior derived from simple rules interaction. The proposed function is evaluated using several statistical tests, while obtained results demonstrate very admissible cryptographic properties such as confusion/diffusion capability and high sensitivity to input changes. Furthermore, the hashing scheme can be easily implemented through software or hardware, so it provides very competitive running performances.