HCAHF: A new family of CA-based hash functions

Abstract

Cryptographic hash functions (CHF) represent a core cryptographic primitive. They have application in digital signature and message authentication protocols. Their main building block are Boolean functions. Those functions provide pseudo-randomness and sensitivity to the input. They also help prevent and lower the risk of attacks targeted at CHF. Cellular automata (CA) are a class of Boolean functions that exhibit good cryptographic properties and display a chaotic behavior. In this article, a new hash function based on CA is proposed. A description of the algorithm and the security measures to increase the robustness of the construction are presented. A security analysis against generic and dedicated attacks is included. It shows that the hashing algorithm has good security features and meet the security requirements of a good hashing scheme. The results of the tests and the properties of the CA used demonstrate the good statistical and cryptographic properties of the hash function.