Extension of Overbeck's Attack for Gabidulin Based Cryptosystems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new attack method targeting Gabidulin-based cryptosystems, successfully compromising two variants previously considered resistant to Overbeck's attack, thus highlighting vulnerabilities in rank metric cryptography.

Contribution

The paper extends Overbeck's attack to effectively break two variants of GPT cryptosystems designed to withstand earlier attacks.

Findings

Successfully cryptanalyzed two GPT variants

Demonstrated vulnerabilities in rank metric cryptosystems

Extended the applicability of Overbeck's attack

Abstract

We present a new attack against cryptosystems based on the rank metric. Our attack allows us to cryptanalyze two variants of the GPT cryptosystem which were designed to resist the attack of Overbeck.