Cryptographic Attack Types Reference
Reference for cryptanalysis techniques: differential, linear, algebraic, and related-key attacks.
Classical Cryptanalysis
Differential cryptanalysis tracks how input differences propagate through cipher rounds to predict output differences. Linear cryptanalysis approximates cipher behavior with linear equations to recover key bits. These techniques require large numbers of chosen or known plaintext-ciphertext pairs. Modern ciphers are designed with provable bounds against these attacks.
- differential
- Tracks difference propagation
- linear
- Linear approximations
- integral
- Sum properties over sets
chosen plaintextknown plaintextsquare attackModern Attack Vectors
Related-key attacks exploit ciphers under keys with known relationships, relevant to hash function constructions. Algebraic attacks model cipher operations as polynomial systems and attempt to solve them. Side-channel attacks exploit physical leakage rather than mathematical weaknesses. Quantum attacks (Grover) halve the effective key security.
- related-key
- Known key relationships
- algebraic
- Polynomial system solving
- quantum
- Grover halves security
hash constructionsGröbner basesneed 2x key size