My final year project was completed under the supervision of Dr. Leonie Simpson with a team of four students. The project involved the analysis of the lightweight symmetric encryption algorithm “TinyJAMBU”. The project was completed over the course of 2021 and was an absolute pleasure to undertake. I gained great insight into a range of cryptanalytic techniques and technical, low-level coding skills. Below is the abstract for our research. If you would like to read the full paper, please send me an email.
Abstract
TinyJAMBU is a proposed lightweight cryptographic algorithm that was created in response to the open call competition held by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In this paper, we investigate the stated security of the algorithm using several common cryptographic analysis techniques. We outline the methodology along with our findings throughout the project. In the statistical analysis we perform various randomness tests, finding that the algorithm appears sufficiently random. In investigating the differentials of plaintext and ciphertext produced by the algorithm, no apparent properties are exhibited which we would disadvantageous. Attempts at forgery were made against three separate areas: modification of the initialisation parameters, modification of the associated data and plaintext, and modification of the state for MAC generation. The team then produced their own modified version of the algorithm, reducing the state size from 128-bits to 32-bits. Using the modified cipher the team measures the theoretical collision rate against a practical implementation. Results from practical experiment matches the expected theoretical probability of collisions.