International Journal of applied mathematics and computer science

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Paper details

Number 2 - June 2015
Volume 25 - 2015

Sender-equivocable encryption schemes secure against chosen-ciphertext attacks revisited

Zhengan Huang, Shengli Liu, Baodong Qin, Kefei Chen

Abstract
Fehr et al. (2010) proposed the first sender-equivocable encryption scheme secure against chosen-ciphertext attacks (NCCCA) and proved that NC-CCA security implies security against selective opening chosen-ciphertext attacks (SO-CCA). The NC-CCA security proof of the scheme relies on security against substitution attacks of a new primitive, the “cross-authentication code”. However, the security of the cross-authentication code cannot be guaranteed when all the keys used in the code are exposed. Our key observation is that, in the NC-CCA security game, the randomness used in the generation of the challenge ciphertext is exposed to the adversary. Based on this observation, we provide a security analysis of Fehr et al.'s scheme, showing that its NC-CCA security proof is flawed. We also point out that the scheme of Fehr et al. encrypting a single-bit plaintext can be refined to achieve NC-CCA security, free of the cross-authentication code. Furthermore, we propose the notion of “strong cross-authentication code”, apply it to Fehr et al. 's scheme, and show that the new version of the latter achieves NC-CCA security for multi-bit plaintexts.

Keywords
sender-equivocable encryption, chosen-ciphertext attack, cross-authentication code

DOI
10.1515/amcs-2015-0032