Security and Implementation Properties of ABC v.2
Vladimir Anashin, Andrey Bogdanov, Ilya Kizhvatov · 2006
Abstract. ABC is a synchronous stream cipher submitted to eSTREAM. Here we describe ABC v.2 – a tweaked version of ABC. The tweaks made ABC v.2 resistant to certain attacks, including the ones presented by Berbain and Gilbert and by Khazaei. We give a design rationale and a brief security analysis of ABC v.2. Also it is shown that the distinguishing attacks against ABC v.2 like the one suggested by Khazaei and Kiaei are totally impractical. ABC v.2 is extremely fast in software often heading the eSTREAM benchmark list. Further we define informal requirements for an industrial software stream cipher and show that ABC v.2 meets them. Moreover, we demonstrate that ABC v.2 is also suitable for embedded security applications demanding high performance. Keywords: cryptography, stream cipher, ABC, eSTREAM, ECRYPT, distinguishing attack, stream cipher performance