The related-key analysis of feistel constructions

Abstract

It is well known that the classical three- and four-round Feistel constructions are provably secure under chosen-plaintext and chosenciphertext attacks, respectively. However, irrespective of the number of rounds, no Feistel construction can resist related-key attacks where the keys can be offset by a constant. In this paper we show that, under suitable reuse of round keys, security under related-key attacks can be provably attained. Our modification is simpler and more efficient than alternatives obtained using generic transforms, namely the PRG transform of Bellare and Cash (CRYPTO 2010) and its random-oracle analogue outlined by Lucks (FSE 2004). Additionally we formalize Luck’s transform and show that it does not always work if related keys are derived in an oracle-dependent way, and then prove it sound under appropriate restrictions.