Security evaluation of certain broadcast encryption schemes employing a generalized time-memory-data trade-off

Abstract

In this letter a weakness of certain broadcast encryption schemes in which the protected delivery of a session key (SEK) is based on XOR-ing this SEK with the IDs of the keys employed for its encryption is addressed. The weakness can be effectively explored assuming passive attacking which in the cases corresponding to a malicious legitimate user being the attacker, is a ciphertext only attack. A dedicated algorithm for cryptanalysis is proposed based on a generalized time-memory-data trade-off approach and its main characteristics are derived. The developed algorithm points out a security weakness of employing a block cipher with block length shorter than the key length in the considered BE schemes.