QCCA-Secure Generic Transformations in the Quantum Random Oracle Model

NTS-KEM is one of the 17 post-quantum public-key encryption (PKE) and key establishment schemes remaining in contention for standardization by NIST. It is a code-based cryptosystem that starts with a combination of the (weakly secure) McEliece and Niederreiter PKE schemes and applies a variant of the Fujisaki-Okamoto (Journal of Cryptology 2013) or Dent (IMACC 2003) transforms to build an IND-CCA secure key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) in the classical random oracle model (ROM). Such generic KEM transformations were also proven to be secure in the quantum ROM (QROM) by Hofheinz et al. (TCC 2017), Jiang et al. (Crypto 2018) and Saito et al. (Eurocrypt 2018). However, the NTS-KEM specification has some peculiarities which means that these security proofs do not directly apply to it.

The famous Fiat-Shamir transformation turns any public-coin three-round interactive proof, i.e., any so-called sigma-protocol, into a non-interactive proof in the random-oracle model. We study this transformation in the setting of a quantum adversary that in particular may query the random oracle in quantum superposition. Our main result is a generic reduction that transforms any quantum dishonest prover attacking the Fiat-Shamir transformation in the quantum random-oracle model into a similarly successful quantum dishonest prover attacking the underlying sigma-protocol (in the standard model). Applied to the standard soundness and proof-of-knowledge definitions, our reduction implies that both these security properties, in both the computational and the statistical variant, are preserved under the Fiat-Shamir transformation even when allowing quantum attacks. Our result improves and completes the partial results that have been known so far, but it also proves wrong certain claims made in the literature. In the context of post-quantum secure signature schemes, our results imply that for any sigma-protocol that is a proof-of-knowledge against quantum dishonest provers (and that satisfies some additional natural properties), the corresponding Fiat-Shamir signature scheme is secure in the quantum random-oracle model. For example, we can conclude that the non-optimized version of Fish, which is the bare Fiat-Shamir variant of the NIST candidate Picnic, is secure in the quantum random-oracle model.

Code-based public key cryptosystems have been found to be an interesting option in the area of Post-Quantum Cryptography. In this work, we present a key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) using a parity check matrix of the Generalized Srivastava code as the public key matrix. Generalized Srivastava codes are privileged with the decoding technique of Alternant codes as they belong to the family of Alternant codes. We exploit the dyadic structure of the parity check matrix to reduce the storage of the public key. Our encapsulation leads to a shorter ciphertext as compared to DAGS proposed by Banegas et al. in Journal of Mathematical Cryptology which also uses Generalized Srivastava code. Our KEM provides IND-CCA security in the random oracle model. Also, our scheme can be shown to achieve post-quantum security in the quantum random oracle model.

We propose a security model for evaluating the security of authenticated encryption schemes in the post-quantum setting. Our security model is based on a combination of the classical Bellare-Namprempre security model for authenticated encryption together with modifications from Boneh and Zhandry to handle message authentication against quantum adversaries. We give a generic construction based on the Bellare-Namprempre model for producing an authenticated encryption protocol from any quantum-resistant symmetric-key encryption scheme together with any authentication scheme digital signature scheme or MAC admitting a classical security reduction to a quantum-computationally hard problem. We give examples of suitable authentication schemes under the quantum random oracle model using the Boneh-Zhandry transformation. We also provide tables of communication overhead calculations and comparisons for various choices of component primitives in our construction.

We present a quantumly secure identity-based signature scheme based on the standard short integer solution problem, featuring tight security reductions in the quantum and classic random oracle models. The scheme has short signatures. Each signature contains a single lattice vector plus a single bit. Compared to the existing tightly secure, short lattice identity-based signature schemes by Pan and Wagner (PQCrypto’21), our scheme has a shorter signature size (around 30% shorter), stronger unforgeability, relies on a weaker assumption, and has detailed proof in the quantum random oracle model.

In the context of quantum-resistant cryptography, cryptographic group actions offer an abstraction of isogeny-based cryptography in the Commutative Supersingular Isogeny Diffie-Hellman (CSIDH) setting. In this work, we revisit the security of two previously proposed natural protocols: the Group Action Hashed ElGamal key encapsulation mechanism (GA-HEG KEM) and the Group Action Hashed Diffie-Hellman non-interactive key-exchange (GA-HDH NIKE) protocol. The latter protocol has already been considered to be used in practical protocols such as Post-Quantum WireGuard (S &P ’21) and OPTLS (CCS ’20).We prove that active security of the two protocols in the Quantum Random Oracle Model (QROM) inherently relies on very strong variants of the Group Action Strong CDH problem, where the adversary is given arbitrary quantum access to a DDH oracle. That is, quantum accessible Strong CDH assumptions are not only sufficient but also necessary to prove active security of the GA-HEG KEM and the GA-HDH NIKE protocols.Furthermore, we propose variants of the protocols with QROM security from the classical Strong CDH assumption, i.e., CDH with classical access to the DDH oracle. Our first variant uses key confirmation and can therefore only be applied in the KEM setting. Our second but considerably less efficient variant is based on the twinning technique by Cash et al. (EUROCRYPT ’08) and in particular yields the first actively secure isogeny-based NIKE with QROM security from the standard CDH assumption.KeywordsGroup actionsCSIDHHashed ElGamalNIKEQROMTwinning

With the gradual progress of NIST’s post-quantum cryptography standardization, the Round-1 KEM proposals have been posted for public to discuss and evaluate. Among the IND-CCA-secure KEM constructions, mostly, an IND-CPA-secure (or OW-CPA-secure) public-key encryption (PKE) scheme is first introduced, then some generic transformations are applied to it. All these generic transformations are constructed in the random oracle model (ROM). To fully assess the post-quantum security, security analysis in the quantum random oracle model (QROM) is preferred. However, current works either lacked a QROM security proof or just followed Targhi and Unruh’s proof technique (TCC-B 2016) and modified the original transformations by adding an additional hash to the ciphertext to achieve the QROM security.

We present a new template for building oblivious transfer from quantum information that we call the “fixed basis” framework. Our framework departs from prior work (e.g., Crepeau and Kilian, FOCS’88) by fixing the correct choice of measurement basis used by each player, except for some hidden trap qubits that are intentionally measured in a conjugate basis. We instantiate this template in the quantum random oracle model (QROM) to obtain simple protocols that implement, with security against malicious adversaries: Along the way, we develop technical tools that may be of independent interest. We prove that natural functions like XOR enable seedless randomness extraction from certain quantum sources of entropy. We also use idealized (i.e. extractable and equivocal) bit commitments, which we obtain by proving security of simple and efficient constructions in the QROM.

We propose \(\mathsf {FO_\mathsf {AKE}}\), a generic construction of two-message authenticated key exchange (AKE) from any passively secure public key encryption (PKE) in the quantum random oracle model (QROM). Whereas previous AKE constructions relied on a Diffie-Hellman key exchange or required the underlying PKE scheme to be perfectly correct, our transformation allows arbitrary PKE schemes with non-perfect correctness. Dealing with imperfect schemes is one of the major difficulties in a setting involving active attacks. Our direct construction, when applied to schemes such as the submissions to the recent NIST post-quantum competition, is more natural than previous AKE transformations. Furthermore, we avoid the use of (quantum-secure) digital signature schemes which are considerably less efficient than their PKE counterparts. As a consequence, we can instantiate our AKE transformation with any of the submissions to the recent NIST competition, e.g., ones based on codes and lattices.

Selective opening (SO) security is one of the most important securities of public key encryption (PKE) in a multi-user setting. Even though messages and random coins used in some ciphertexts are leaked, SO security guarantees the confidentiality of the other ciphertexts. Actually, it is shown that there exist PKE schemes which meet the standard security such as indistinguishability against chosen ciphertext attacks (IND-CCA security) but do not meet SO security against chosen ciphertext attacks. Hence, it is important to consider SO security in the multi-user setting. On the other hand, many researchers have studied cryptosystems in the security model where adversaries can submit quantum superposition queries (i.e., quantum queries) to oracles. In particular, IND-CCA secure PKE and KEM schemes in the quantum random oracle model have been intensively studied so far.

This paper proposes two one-round authenticated group key exchange protocols from newly employed cryptographic invariant maps (CIMs): one is secure in the quantum random oracle model and the other resists against maximum exposure where a non-trivial combination of secret keys is revealed. The security of the former (resp. latter) is proved under the n-way decisional (resp. n-way gap) Diffie–Hellman assumption on the CIMs in the quantum random (resp. random) oracle model.

We study a scheme of Bai and Galbraith (CT-RSA’14), also known as TESLA. TESLA was thought to have a tight security reduction from the learning with errors problem (LWE) in the random oracle model (ROM). Moreover, a variant using chameleon hash functions was lifted to the quantum random oracle model (QROM). However, both reductions were later found to be flawed and hence it remained unresolved until now whether TESLA can be proven to be tightly secure in the (Q)ROM.

We present signature schemes whose security relies on computational assumptions relating to isogeny graphs of supersingular elliptic curves. We give two schemes, both of them based on interactive identification protocols. The first identification protocol is due to De Feo, Jao and Plût. The second one, and the main contribution of the paper, makes novel use of an algorithm of Kohel, Lauter, Petit and Tignol for the quaternion version of the ell -isogeny problem, for which we provide a more complete description and analysis, and is based on a more standard and potentially stronger computational problem. Both identification protocols lead to signatures that are existentially unforgeable under chosen message attacks in the random oracle model using the well-known Fiat-Shamir transform, and in the quantum random oracle model using another transform due to Unruh. A version of the first signature scheme was independently published by Yoo, Azarderakhsh, Jalali, Jao and Soukharev. This is the full version of a paper published at ASIACRYPT 2017.

In function inversion, we are given a function $f:[N]\rightarrow[N]$ , and want to prepare some advice of size $S$ , such that we can efficiently invert any image in time $T$ . This is a well studied problem with profound connections to cryptography, data structures, communication complexity, and circuit lower bounds. Investigation of this problem in the quantum setting was initiated by Nayebi, Aaronson, Belovs, and Trevisan (2015), who proved a lower bound of $ST^{2}=\tilde{\Omega}(N)$ for random permutations against classical advice, leaving open an intriguing possibility that Grover's search can be sped up to time $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{N/S})$ . Recent works by Hhan, Xagawa, and Yamakawa (2019), and Chung, Liao, and Qian (2019) extended the argument for random functions and quantum advice, but the lower bound remains $ST^{2}=\tilde{\Omega}(N)$ . In this work, we prove that even with quantum advice, $ST+ T^{2}=\tilde{\Omega}(N)$ , is required for an algorithm to invert random functions. This demonstrates that Grover's search is optimal for $S=\tilde{O}(\sqrt{N})$ , ruling out any substantial speed-up for Grover's search even with quantum advice. Further improvements to our bounds would imply new classical circuit lower bounds, as shown by Corrigan-Gibbs and Kogan (2019). To prove this result, we develop a general framework for establishing quantum time-space lower bounds. We further demonstrate the power of our framework by proving the following results. •Yao's box problem: We prove a tight quantum time-space lower bound for classical advice. For quantum advice, we prove a first time-space lower bound using shadow tomography. These results resolve two open problems posted by Nayebi et al (2015). •Salted cryptography: We show that “salting generically provably defeats preprocessing,” a result shown by Coretti, Dodis, Guo, and Steinberger (2018), also holds in the quantum setting. In particular, we prove quantum time-space lower bounds for a wide class of salted cryptographic primitives in the quantum random oracle model. This yields the first quantum time-space lower bound for salted collision-finding, which in turn implies that $\text{PWPP}^{\mathcal{O}} \nsubseteq \text{FBQP}^{\mathcal{O}}/\text{qpoly}$ relative to a random oracle $\mathcal{O}$ .

Many of the recent advanced lattice-based \(\varSigma \)-/public-coin honest verifier (HVZK) interactive protocols based on the techniques developed by Lyubashevsky (Asiacrypt’09, Eurocrypt’12) can be transformed into a non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) proof in the random oracle model (ROM) using the Fiat-Shamir transform. Unfortunately, although they are known to be secure in the classical ROM, existing proof techniques are incapable of proving them secure in the quantum ROM (QROM). Alternatively, while we could instead rely on the Unruh transform (Eurocrypt’15), the resulting QROM secure NIZK will incur a large overhead compared to the underlying interactive protocol.