RC4 Stream Cipher and Its Variants
Purchasing Options
Features
- Represents the first complete book on RC4
- Requires no prior knowledge of cryptography
- Introduces basic concepts, such as private/public key cryptosystems and block/stream ciphers, before covering advanced material
- Elucidates the theoretical underpinnings and experimental observations
- Includes end-of-chapter research problems that highlight opportunities for future research
- Offers a comprehensive bibliography of RC4 literature
Summary
RC4 Stream Cipher and Its Variants is the first book to fully cover the popular software stream cipher RC4. With extensive expertise in stream cipher cryptanalysis and RC4 research, the authors focus on the analysis and design issues of RC4. They also explore variants of RC4 and the eSTREAM finalist HC-128.
After an introduction to the vast field of cryptology, the book reviews hardware and software stream ciphers and describes RC4. It presents a theoretical analysis of RC4 KSA, discussing biases of the permutation bytes toward secret key bytes and absolute values. The text explains how to reconstruct the secret key from known state information and analyzes the RC4 PRGA in detail, including a sketch of state recovery attacks. The book then describes three popular attacks on RC4: distinguishing attacks, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol attacks, and fault attacks. The authors also compare the advantages and disadvantages of several variants of RC4 and examine stream cipher HC-128, which is the next level of evolution after RC4 in the software stream cipher paradigm. The final chapter emphasizes the safe use of RC4.
With open research problems in each chapter, this book offers a complete account of the most current research on RC4.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Cryptography
Etymology and Some Historical Facts
Primary Goals of Cryptography
Basic Terminology
Cryptographic Attack Models
Cryptographic Security
Private and Public Key Cryptosystems
Stream Ciphers and RC4
Introduction to Stream Ciphers
Attack Models for Stream Cipher Cryptanalysis
Hardware Stream Ciphers
Software Stream Ciphers
On Randomness and Pseudo-Randomness
Analysis of Key Scheduling
Bias of Permutation toward Secret Key
Non-Randomness of Permutation
Movement Frequency of Permutation Values
Key Collisions
Key Recovery from State Information
Reversibility of RC4 PRGA
Recovery through Solving Simultaneous Equations
Improvement by Difference Equations
Group of Key Bytes Approach
Byte by Byte Recovery
Bit by Bit Recovery
Bidirectional Key Search
Analysis of Keystream Generation
Finney Cycles
Glimpse Theorem
Biased Permutation Index Selection for the First Keystream Byte
Characterization of PRGA Evolution
Some Biases in First Keystream Byte toward Secret Key
More Biases in Many Keystream Bytes toward Secret Key
Exhaustive Enumeration of All Biases
State Recovery from Keystream
Distinguishing Attacks
A Theoretical Framework of Distinguishing Attacks
Distinguishers Based on Initial Keystream Bytes
Distinguishers Based on Any Stage of PRGA
WEP and WPA Attacks
RC4 in WEP and the Attack Principle
FMS Attack
Mantin’s Attack
Klein’s Attack
PTW and VX Attacks
RC4 in WPA and Related Attacks
Fault Attacks
Hoch and Shamir’s Attack
Impossible and Differential Fault Attacks
Fault Attack Based on Fork Model
Fault Attack with Pseudo-Random Index Stuck
Variants of RC4
Byte-Oriented Variants
Word-Oriented Variants
RC4-Based Hash
RC4+
Stream Cipher HC-128
Description of HC-128
Linear Approximation of Feedback Functions
Distinguishing Attacks on HC-128
Collisions in h1, h2 and State Leakage in Keystream
Constructing Full-State Given Only Half-State Information
Design Modification with Respect to Known Observations
Conclusion
Safe Use of RC4
Appendix A: A Sample C Implementation of RC4
Appendix B: Verified Test Vectors of RC4
Bibliography
Index
Research Problems are presented at the end of chapters 3-10.
Author Bio(s)
Editorial Reviews
I am delighted to introduce the first complete book on RC4, the most popular and widely deployed software stream cipher. … This book contains not only the authors’ own research materials, but it has nicely assimilated the results of others to make it a complete treatise on RC4 and its variants. I believe this book will be widely accepted as an important research monograph by both the students and experienced researchers in the field of cryptology.
—From the Foreword by Bimal Roy, founder of the Cryptology Research Society of India and director of the Indian Statistical Institute
