Forgery attacks on ++AE authenticated encryption mode
Hassan Qahur Al Mahri, Leonie Ruth Simpson, Harry Bartlett, Ed Dawson, Kenneth Koon‐Ho Wong · Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference · 2016
In this paper, we analyse a block cipher mode of operation submitted in 2014 to the cryptographic competition for authenticated encryption (CAESAR). This mode is designed by Recacha and called ++AE (plus-plus-ae). We propose a chosen plaintext forgery attack on ++AE that requires only a single chosen message query to allow an attacker to construct multiple forged messages. Our attack is deterministic and guaranteed to pass ++AE integrity check. We demonstrate the forgery attack using 128-bit AES as the underlying block cipher. Hence, ++AE is insecure as an authenticated encryption mode of operation.