Schneier on Security

Cryptanalysis of FROG

D. Wagner, N. Ferguson, and B. Schneier

Second AES Candiate Conference, April 1999, pp. 175–181.

ABSTRACT: We examine some attacks on the FROG cipher. First we give a differential attack which uses about 2⁵⁸ chosen plaintexts and very little time for the analysis; it works for about 2^-33.0 of the keyspace. Then we describe a linear attack that uses 2⁵⁶ known texts and works for 2^-31.8 of the keyspace. The linear attack can also be converted to a ciphertext-only attack using 2⁶⁴ known ciphertexts. Also, the decryption function of FROG is a lot weaker than the encryption function. We show a differential attack on the decryption function that requires 2³⁶ chosen ciphertexts and works on 2^-29.3 of the keyspace. Using our best attack, an attacker with a sufficient number of cryptanalytical targets can expect to recover his first key after 2^56.7 work.

Taken together, these observations suggest that FROG is not a very strong candidate for the AES.

[full text – PDF (Acrobat)] [full text – Postscript]

Categories: Algorithm Analyses