New Generation Computing, 23(2005)233-243
Ohmsha, Ltd. and Springer

New Results on the Genetic Cryptanalysis of TEA and Reduced-round Versions of XTEA

Julio César HERNÁNDEZ CASTRO
LIFL-CNRS
59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq, France
hernande@lifl.fr
Pedro ISASI VIÑUELA
Computer Science Department
Carlos III University
28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain
isasi@inf.uc3m.es

Received 31 March 2004
Revised manuscript received 2 July 2004

Abstract

Recently, a quick and simple way of creating very efficient distinguishers for cryptographic primitives such as block ciphers or hash functions, was presented and proved useful by the authors. In this paper, this cryptanalytic attack (named genetic cryptanalysis after its use of genetic algorithms) is shown to be successful when applied over reduced-round versions of the block cipher XTEA. Efficient distinguishers for XTEA are proposed for up to 4 cycles (8 rounds). Additionally, a variant of this genetic attack is also introduced, and their results over the block cipher TEA presented, which are the most powerful published to date.

Keywords:Cryptanalysis, Distinguishers, Block Ciphers, XTEA, TEA.

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