On the Security of the Yi-Tan-Siew Chaos-Based Cipher

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the Yi-Tan-Siew chaos-based cipher, revealing vulnerabilities through differential attacks and clarifying security issues related to sub-keys, ultimately questioning its robustness regardless of the chaotic map used.

Contribution

It introduces differential chosen-plaintext and ciphertext attacks that compromise the cipher's sub-key K and clarifies security issues of sub-keys α and β from both theoretical and experimental perspectives.

Findings

The cipher's sub-key K can be broken using differential attacks.

Security of the cipher is independent of the chaotic tent map.

Sub-keys α and β have inherent security problems.

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis on the security of the Yi-Tan-Siew chaotic cipher proposed in [IEEE TCAS-I 49(12):1826-1829 (2002)]. A differential chosen-plaintext attack and a differential chosen-ciphertext attack are suggested to break the sub-key K, under the assumption that the time stamp can be altered by the attacker, which is reasonable in such attacks. Also, some security Problems about the sub-keys $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are clarified, from both theoretical and experimental points of view. Further analysis shows that the security of this cipher is independent of the use of the chaotic tent map, once the sub-key $K$ is removed via the proposed suggested differential chosen-plaintext attack.