Pooya Farshim

Generic Constructions of Identity-Based and Certificateless KEMs

Abstract We extend the concept of key encapsulation to the primitives of identity-based and certificateless encryption. We show that the natural combination of ID-KEMs or CL-KEMs with data encapsulation mechanisms results in encryption schemes that are secure in a strong sense. In addition, we give generic constructions of ID-KEMs and CL-KEMs that are provably secure in the random oracle model.

Efficient identity-based key encapsulation to multiple parties

We introduce the concept of identity based key encapsulation to multiple parties (mID-KEM), and define a security model for it. This concept is the identity based analogue of public key KEM to multiple parties. We also analyse possible mID-KEM constructions, and propose an efficient scheme based on bilinear pairings. We prove our scheme secure in the random oracle model under the Gap Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption.

Delegatable homomorphic encryption with applications to secure outsourcing of computation

We propose a new cryptographic primitive called Delegatable Homomorphic Encryption (DHE). This allows a Trusted Authority to control/delegate the evaluation of circuits over encrypted data to untrusted workers/evaluators by issuing tokens. This primitive can be both seen as a public-key counterpart to Verifiable Computation, where input generation and output verification are performed by different entities, or as a generalisation of Fully Homomorphic Encryption enabling control over computations on encrypted data. Our primitive comes with a series of extra features: 1) there is a one-time setup procedure for all circuits; 2) senders do not need to be aware of the functions which will be evaluated on the encrypted data, nor do they need to register keys; 3) tokens are independent of senders and receiver; and 4) receivers are able to verify the correctness of computation given short auxiliary information on the input data and the function, independently of the complexity of the computed circuit. We give a modular construction of such a DHE scheme from three components: Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), Functional Encryption (FE), and a (customised) MAC. As a stepping stone, we first define Verifiable Functional Encryption (VFE), and then show how one can build a secure DHE scheme from a VFE and an FHE scheme. We also show how to build the required VFE from a standard FE together with a MAC scheme. All our results hold in the standard model. Finally, we show how one can build a verifiable computation (VC) scheme generically from a DHE. As a corollary, we get the first VC scheme which remains verifiable even if the attacker can observe verification results.

Indistinguishability Obfuscation and UCEs: The Case of Computationally Unpredictable Sources

Random oracles are powerful cryptographic objects. They facilitate the security proofs of an impressive number of practical cryptosystems ranging from KDM-secure and deterministic encryption to point-function obfuscation and many more. However, due to an uninstantiability result of Canetti, Goldreich, and Halevi (STOC 1998) random oracles have become somewhat controversial. Recently, Bellare, Hoang, and Keelveedhi (BHK; CRYPTO 2013 and ePrint 2013/424, August 2013) introduced a new abstraction called Universal Computational Extractors (UCEs), and showed that they suffice to securely replace random oracles in a number of prominent applications, including all those mentioned above, without suffering from the aforementioned uninstantiability result. This, however, leaves open the question of constructing UCEs in the standard model.

On cipher-dependent related-key attacks in the ideal-cipher model

Bellare and Kohno introduced a formal framework for the study of related-key attacks against blockciphers. They established sufficient conditions (output-unpredictability and collision-resistance) on the set of related-key-deriving (RKD) functions under which an ideal cipher is secure against related-key attacks, and suggested this could be used to derive security goals for real blockciphers. However, to do so requires the reinterpretation of results proven in the idealcipher model for the standard model (in which a blockcipher is modelled as, say, a pseudorandom permutation family). As we show here, this is a fraught activity. In particular, building on a recent idea of Bernstein, we first demonstrate a related-key attack that applies generically to a large class of blockciphers. The attack exploits the existence of a short description of the blockcipher, and so does not apply in the ideal-cipher model. However, the specific RKD functions used in the attack are provably output-unpredictable and collision-resistant. In this sense, the attack can be seen as a separation between the ideal-cipher model and the standard model. Second, we investigate how the related-key attack model of Bellare and Kohno can be extended to include sets of RKD functions that themselves access the ideal cipher. Precisely such related-key functions underlie the generic attack, so our extended modelling allows us to capture a larger universe of related-key attacks in the ideal-cipher model. We establish a new set of conditions on related-key functions that is sufficient to prove a theorem analogous to the main result of Bellare and Kohno, but for our extended model. We then exhibit non-trivial classes of practically relevant RKD functions meeting the new conditions. We go on to discuss standard model interpretations of this theorem, explaining why, although separations between the ideal-cipher model and the standard model still exist for this setting, they can be seen as being much less natural than our previous separation. In this manner, we argue that our extension of the Bellare-Kohno model represents a useful advance in the modelling of related-key attacks. In the full version of the paper, we also consider the topic of key-recovering related-key attacks and its relationship to the Bellare-Kohno formalism. In particular, we address the question of whether lowering the security goal by requiring the adversary to perform key-recovery excludes separations of the type exhibited by us in the Bellare-Kohno model.

On the Semantic Security of Functional Encryption Schemes

Functional encryption (FE) is a powerful cryptographic primitive that generalizes many asymmetric encryption systems proposed in recent years. Syntax and security definitions for FE were proposed by Boneh, Sahai, and Waters (BSW) (TCC 2011) and independently by O’Neill (ePrint 2010/556). In this paper we revisit these definitions, identify several shortcomings in them, and propose a new definitional approach that overcomes these limitations. Our definitions display good compositionality properties and allow us to obtain new feasibility and impossibility results for adaptive token-extraction attack scenarios that shed further light on the potential reach of general FE for practical applications.

The Related-Key Security of Iterated Even–Mansour Ciphers

The simplicity and widespread use of blockciphers based on the iterated Even–Mansour (EM) construction has sparked recent interest in the theoretical study of their security. Previous work has established their strong pseudorandom permutation and indifferentiability properties, with some matching lower bounds presented to demonstrate tightness. In this work we initiate the study of the EM ciphers under related-key attacks which, despite extensive prior work on EM ciphers, has received little attention. We show that the simplest one-round EM cipher is strong enough to achieve non-trivial levels of RKA security even under chosen-ciphertext attacks. This class, however, does not include the practically relevant case of offsetting keys by constants. We show that two rounds suffice to reach this level under chosen-plaintext attacks and that three rounds can boost security to resist chosen-ciphertext attacks. We also formalize how indifferentiability relates to RKA security, showing strong positive results despite counterexamples presented for indifferentiability in multi-stage games.

Secure cryptographic workflow in the standard model

Following the work of Al-Riyami et al. we define the notion of key encapsulation mechanism supporting cryptographic workflow (WF-KEM) and prove a KEM-DEM composition theorem which extends the notion of hybrid encryption to cryptographic workflow. We then generically construct a WF-KEM from an identity-based encryption (IBE) scheme and a secret sharing scheme. Chosen ciphertext security is achieved using one-time signatures. Adding a public-key encryption scheme we are able to modify the construction to obtain escrow-freeness. We prove all our constructions secure in the standard model.

A More Cautious Approach to Security Against Mass Surveillance

At CRYPTO 2014 Bellare, Paterson, and Rogaway (BPR) presented a formal treatment of symmetric encryption in the light of algorithm substitution attacks (ASAs), which may be employed by ‘big brother’ entities for the scope of mass surveillance. Roughly speaking, in ASAs big brother may bias ciphertexts to establish a covert channel to leak vital cryptographic information. In this work, we identify a seemingly benign assumption implicit in BPR’s treatment and argue that it artificially (and severely) limits big brother’s capabilities. We then demonstrate the critical role that this assumption plays by showing that even a slight weakening of it renders the security notion completely unsatisfiable by any, possibly deterministic and/or stateful, symmetric encryption scheme. We propose a refined security model to address this shortcoming, and use it to restore the positive result of BPR, but caution that this defense does not stop most other forms of covert-channel attacks.

Robust Encryption, Revisited

We revisit the notions of robustness introduced by Abdalla, Bellare, and Neven (TCC 2010). One of the main motivations for the introduction of strong robustness for public-key encryption (PKE) by Abdalla et al. is to prevent certain types of attack on Sako’s auction protocol. We show, perhaps surprisingly, that Sako’s protocol is still vulnerable to attacks exploiting robustness problems in the underlying PKE scheme, even when it is instantiated with a strongly robust scheme. This demonstrates that current notions of robustness are insufficient even for one of its most natural applications. To address this and other limitations in existing notions, we introduce a series of new robustness notions for PKE and explore their relationships. In particular, we introduce complete robustness, our strongest new notion of robustness, and give a number of constructions for completely robust PKE schemes.