Author:
Matt Henricksen
Affiliation:
A*STAR, Singapore
Keyword(s):
Dragon, Stream Ciphers, AES-NI, Cryptology.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applied Cryptography
;
Cryptographic Techniques and Key Management
;
Data and Application Security and Privacy
;
Data Engineering
;
Data Integrity
;
Data Protection
;
Databases and Data Security
;
Information and Systems Security
Abstract:
The EU eSTREAMcompetition selected two portfolios of stream ciphers, from among thirty-four candidates, with members that were either fast in software or compact in hardware. Dragon was among the eight finalists in the software category. While meeting the performance requirement of being faster than the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) on many platforms, it was less efficient than the four ciphers selected for the portfolio. Cryptanalysis revealed some less-than-ideal properties. In this paper, we provide some new insights into Dragon, and propose two modifications: Black Dragon, which is tailored for efficient implementation in modern SIMD architectures; and Yellow Dragon, which utilizes recent developments in Chinese block ciphers. We show the improved security and performance of these two variants.