Cryptanalysis of a hash function based on quasi-cyclic codes

Abstract

At the ECRYPT Hash Workshop 2007, Finiasz, Gaborit, and Sendrier proposed an improved version of a previous provably secure syndrome-based hash function. The main innovation of the new design is the use of a quasi-cyclic code in order to have a shorter description and to lower the memory usage. In this paper, we look at the security implications of using a quasi-cyclic code. We show that this very rich structure can be used to build a highly efficient attack: with most parameters, our collision attack is faster than the compression function! © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.