Polynomial Lattices for the BIKE Cryptosystem

TL;DR

This paper introduces a polynomial lattice structure related to the BIKE cryptosystem, enabling analysis of weak keys through lattice basis reduction, which enhances understanding of key vulnerabilities.

Contribution

It constructs a rank 2 polynomial lattice from BIKE's public key and generalizes weak key recovery by providing a reduced basis for the lattice.

Findings

Constructed a polynomial lattice from BIKE public key

Generalized weak key recovery to a lattice basis reduction approach

Enabled detection of more weak keys using the reduced basis

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a rank $2$ lattice over a polynomial ring arising from the public key of the BIKE cryptosystem. The secret key is a sparse vector in this lattice. We study properties of this lattice and generalize the recovery of weak keys from "Weak keys for the quasi-cyclic MDPC public key encryption scheme". In particular, we show that they implicitly solved a shortest vector problem in the lattice we constructed. Rather than finding only a shortest vector, we obtain a reduced basis of the lattice which makes it possible to check for more weak keys.