Abstract
The alleged RC4 keystream generator is examined, and a method of explicitly computing digraph probabilities is given. Using this method, we demonstrate a method for distinguishing 8-bit RC4 from randomness. Our method requires less keystream output than currently published attacks, requiring only 230:6 bytes of output. In addition, we observe that an attacker can, on occasion, determine portions of the internal state with nontrivial probability. However, we are currently unable to extend this observation to a full attack.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blahut, R., „Principles and Practice of Information Theory”, Addison-Wesley, 1983.
Golić, J., „Linear Models for a Time-Variant Permutation Generator”, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 45,No.7, pp. 2374–2382, Nov. 1999
Golić, J., ”Linear Statistical Weakness of Alleged RC4 Keystream Generator”, Proceedings of EUROCRYPT’ 97, Springer-Verlag.
Knudsen, L., Meier, W., Preneel, B., Rijmen, V., and Verdoolaege, S., “Analysis Methods for (Alleged) RC4”, Proceedings of ASIACRYPT’ 99, Springer-Verlag.
Mister, S. and Tavares, S., “Cryptanalysis of RC4-like Ciphers”, in the Workshop Record of the Workshop on Selected Areas in Cryptography (SAC’ 98), Aug. 17-18, 1998, pp. 136–148.
Rivest, R., „The RC4 encryption algorithm”, RSA Data Security, Inc, Mar. 1992
RSA Laboratories FAQ, Question 3.6.3, http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/faq/3-6-3.html.
Schneier, B., “Applied Cryptography”, New York: Wiley, 1996.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fluhrer, S.R., McGrew, D.A. (2001). Statistical Analysis of the Alleged RC4 Keystream Generator. In: Goos, G., Hartmanis, J., van Leeuwen, J., Schneier, B. (eds) Fast Software Encryption. FSE 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1978. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44706-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44706-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41728-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44706-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive