The Cracking of WalnutDSA: A Survey
by
José Ignacio Escribano Pablos 1,2, María Isabel González Vasco 1
, Misael Enrique Marriaga 1 and 1,*
, Misael Enrique Marriaga 1 and 1,*
1
MACIMTE, U. Rey Juan Carlos, 28933 Móstoles, Spain
2
BBVA Next Technologies, 28050 Madrid, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Symmetry 2019, 11(9), 1072; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11091072
Received: 8 July 2019
/
Revised: 19 August 2019
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Accepted: 20 August 2019
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Published: 23 August 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interactions between Group Theory, Symmetry and Cryptology)
This paper reports on the Walnut Digital Signature Algorithm (WalnutDSA), which is an asymmetric signature scheme recently presented for standardization at the NIST call for post-quantum cryptographic constructions. WalnutDSA is a group theoretical construction, the security of which relies on the hardness of certain problems related to an action of a braid group on a finite set. In spite of originally resisting the typical attacks succeeding against this kind of construction, soon different loopholes were identified rendering the proposal insecure (and finally, resulting in it being excluded from Round 2 of the NIST competition). Some of these attacks are related to the well-structured and symmetric masking of certain secret elements during the signing process. We explain the design principles behind this proposal and survey the main attack strategies that have succeeded, contradicting its claimed security properties, as well as the recently-proposed ideas aimed at overcoming these issues.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Escribano Pablos, J.I.; González Vasco, M.I.; Marriaga, M.E.; Pérez del Pozo, Á.L. The Cracking of WalnutDSA: A Survey. Symmetry 2019, 11, 1072. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11091072
AMA Style
Escribano Pablos JI, González Vasco MI, Marriaga ME, Pérez del Pozo ÁL. The Cracking of WalnutDSA: A Survey. Symmetry. 2019; 11(9):1072. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11091072
Chicago/Turabian StyleEscribano Pablos, José I., María I. González Vasco, Misael E. Marriaga, and Ángel L. Pérez del Pozo 2019. "The Cracking of WalnutDSA: A Survey" Symmetry 11, no. 9: 1072. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11091072
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