Ascon is a family of lightweight authenticated ciphers that had been selected by US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for future standardization of the lightweight cryptography.[2]

Ascon
General
DesignersC. Dobraunig, M. Eichlseder, F. Mendel, M. Schläffer[1]
First published2014
Cipher detail
Key sizesup to 128, 128 bits are recommended
Block sizesup to 128 bits, 128 and 64 bits are recommended
Structuresponge construction
Rounds6-8 rounds per input word recommended

History

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Ascon was developed in 2014 by a team of researchers from Graz University of Technology, Infineon Technologies, Lamarr Security Research, and Radboud University.[3] The cipher family was chosen as a finalist of the CAESAR Competition[3] in February 2019.

NIST had announced its decision on February 7, 2023[3] with the following intermediate steps that would lead to the eventual standardization:[2]

  • Publication of NIST IR 8454 describing the process of evaluation and selection that was used;
  • Preparation of a new draft for public comments;
  • Public workshop to be held on June 21-22, 2023.

Design

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The design is based on a sponge construction along the lines of SpongeWrap and MonkeyDuplex. This design makes it easy to reuse Ascon in multiple ways (as a cipher, hash, or a MAC).[4] As of February 2023, the Ascon suite contained seven ciphers,[3] including:[5]

  • Ascon-128 and Ascon-128a authenticated ciphers;
  • Ascon-Hash cryptographic hash;
  • Ascon-Xof extendable-output function;
  • Ascon-80pq cipher with an "increased" 160-bit key.

The main components have been borrowed from other designs:[4]

  • substitution layer utilizes a modified S-box from the χ function of Keccak;
  • permutation layer functions are similar to the   of SHA-2.

Parameterization

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The ciphers are parameterizable by the key length k (up to 128 bits), "rate" (block size) r, and two numbers of rounds a, b. All algorithms support authenticated encryption with plaintext P and additional authenticated data A (that remains unencrypted). The encryption input also includes a public nonce N, the output - authentication tag T, size of the ciphertext C is the same as that of P. The decryption uses N, A, C, and T as inputs and produces either P or signals verification failure if the message has been altered. Nonce and tag have the same size as the key K (k bits).[6]

In the CAESAR submission, two sets of parameters were recommended:[6]

Suggested parameters, bits
Name k r a b
Ascon-128 128 64 12 6
Ascon-128a 128 128 12 8

Padding

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The data in both A and P is padded with a single bit with the value of 1 and a number of zeros to the nearest multiple of r bits. As an exception, if A is an empty string, there is no padding at all.[7]

State

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The state consists of 320 bits, so the capacity  .[8] The state is initialized by an initialization vector IV (constant for each cipher type, e.g., hex 80400c0600000000 for Ascon-128) concatenated with K and N.[9]

Transformation

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The initial state is transformed by applying a times the transformation function p ( ). On encryption, each word of A || P is XORed into the state and the p is applied b times ( ). The ciphertext C is contained in the first r bits of the result of the XOR. Decryption is near-identical to encryption.[8] The final stage that produces the tag T consists of another application of  ; the special values are XORed into the last c bits after the initialization, the end of A, and before the finalization.[7]

Transformation p consists of three layers:

Test vectors

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Hash values of an empty string (i.e., a zero-length input text) for both the XOF and non-XOF variants.[10]

Ascon-Hash("")
0x 7346bc14f036e87ae03d0997913088f5f68411434b3cf8b54fa796a80d251f91
Ascon-HashA("")
0x aecd027026d0675f9de7a8ad8ccf512db64b1edcf0b20c388a0c7cc617aaa2c4
Ascon-Xof("", 32)
0x 5d4cbde6350ea4c174bd65b5b332f8408f99740b81aa02735eaefbcf0ba0339e
Ascon-XofA("", 32)
0x 7c10dffd6bb03be262d72fbe1b0f530013c6c4eadaabde278d6f29d579e3908d

Even a small change in the message will (with overwhelming probability) result in a different hash, due to the avalanche effect.

Ascon-Hash("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog")
0x 3375fb43372c49cbd48ac5bb6774e7cf5702f537b2cf854628edae1bd280059e
Ascon-Hash("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.")
0x c9744340ed476ac235dd979d12f5010a7523146ee90b57ccc4faeb864efcd048

See also

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References

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  1. ^ NIST (July 2021). "Status Report on the Second Round of the NIST Lightweight Cryptography Standardization Process". nist.gov. National Institute of Standards and Technology. p. 6.
  2. ^ a b NIST 2023a.
  3. ^ a b c d NIST 2023b.
  4. ^ a b Dobraunig et al. 2016, p. 17.
  5. ^ Dobraunig et al. 2021, pp. 4–5.
  6. ^ a b Dobraunig et al. 2016, p. 2.
  7. ^ a b Dobraunig et al. 2016, p. 4.
  8. ^ a b Dobraunig et al. 2016, p. 3.
  9. ^ Dobraunig et al. 2016, pp. 4–5.
  10. ^ "Ascon Hash Family". hashing.tools.

Sources

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