Two modifications for Loidreau's code-based cryptosystem

TL;DR

This paper introduces two modifications to Loidreau's code-based cryptosystem that enhance security against structural attacks, reduce public key size, and increase transmission rates.

Contribution

The paper proposes two novel modifications to improve Loidreau's cryptosystem, making it more secure, compact, and efficient.

Findings

Both modifications resist existing structural attacks.

Public key size is reduced through systematic generator matrices.

Transmission rates are increased with the proposed changes.

Abstract

This paper presents two modifications for Loidreau's code-based cryptosystem. Loidreau's cryptosystem is a rank metric code-based cryptosystem constructed by using Gabidulin codes in the McEliece setting. Recently a polynomial-time key recovery attack was proposed to break Loidreau's cryptosystem in some cases. To prevent this attack, we propose the use of subcodes to disguise the secret codes in Modification \Rmnum{1}. In Modification \Rmnum{2}, we choose a random matrix of low column rank over $\mathbb{F}_q$ to mix with the secret matrix. According to our analysis, these two modifications can both resist the existing structural attacks. Additionally, we adopt the systematic generator matrix of the public code to make a reduction in the public-key size. In additon to stronger resistance against structural attacks and more compact representation of public keys, our modifications also have larger information transmission rates.