An Efficiency Optimization Scheme for the On-the-Fly Statistical Randomness Test

The randomness of random number generators (RNGs) significantly influences the security of cryptographic systems. Although RNGs are allowed to adopt in practical systems only after strict analysis and security evaluation, the randomness of generated sequences may degrade due to aging effects of electronic devices, change of temperature and humidity, or even malicious attacks. Therefore, before the generated sequence being used (as a secret key or any other critical cryptography parameter), it is necessary to execute the on-the-fly statistical randomness test (on-the-fly test) on the candidate sequence to ensure the security. On-the-fly test should be finished efficiently, otherwise, it would impact the cryptographic systems' performance. In this paper, we propose a scheme to optimize the efficiency of randomness test suites, that is, provide an optimized order of the tests in the test suite, so that an unqualified sequence can be rejected as early as possible. We apply this optimization scheme on the NIST test suite (SP 800-22) as an instance. Experimental results of 128- and 256- bit sequence, demonstrate that the optimized efficiency approximates to the theoretical optimum and the scheme can be quickly implemented.

[1]  Chun-Bao Chen,et al.  Rough Set-Based Clustering with Refinement Using Shannon's Entropy Theory , 2006, Comput. Math. Appl..

[2]  Alin Suciu,et al.  Parallel implementation of the NIST Statistical Test Suite , 2010, Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE 6th International Conference on Intelligent Computer Communication and Processing.

[3]  Kenji Hamano,et al.  The Distribution of the Spectrum for the Discrete Fourier Transform Test Included in SP800-22 , 2005, IEICE Trans. Fundam. Electron. Commun. Comput. Sci..

[4]  Pierre L'Ecuyer,et al.  Testing random number generators , 1992, WSC '92.

[5]  Onur Koçak,et al.  Evaluation of Randomness Test Results for Short Sequences , 2010, SETA.

[6]  Werner Schindler,et al.  Efficient Online Tests for True Random Number Generators , 2001, CHES.

[7]  Xuejia Lai,et al.  Measuring Random Tests by Conditional Entropy and Optimal Execution Order , 2010, INTRUST.

[8]  William M. Daley,et al.  Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules , 1999 .

[9]  Elaine B. Barker,et al.  A Statistical Test Suite for Random and Pseudorandom Number Generators for Cryptographic Applications , 2000 .

[10]  Young-Sik Kim,et al.  Fast Digital TRNG Based on Metastable Ring Oscillator , 2008, CHES.

[11]  Peter Hellekalek,et al.  Empirical evidence concerning AES , 2003, TOMC.

[12]  Juan Soto,et al.  Randomness Testing of the AES Candidate Algorithms , 1999 .

[13]  A. Rukhin,et al.  Statistical Testing of Random Number Generators , 1999 .

[14]  Hua Chen,et al.  A General Method to Evaluate the Correlation of Randomness Tests , 2013, WISA.

[15]  Serdar Boztas,et al.  On Independence and Sensitivity of Statistical Randomness Tests , 2008, SETA.

[16]  Simon W. Moore,et al.  The Frequency Injection Attack on Ring-Oscillator-Based True Random Number Generators , 2009, CHES.

[17]  Ken Umeno,et al.  Corrections of the NIST Statistical Test Suite for Randomness , 2004, IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch..

[18]  Toshinobu Kaneko,et al.  Correction of Overlapping Template Matching Test Included in NIST Randomness Test Suite , 2007, IEICE Trans. Fundam. Electron. Commun. Comput. Sci..

[19]  Elaine B. Barker,et al.  A Statistical Test Suite for Random and Pseudorandom Number Generators for Cryptographic Applications , 2000 .

[20]  John Kelsey,et al.  Recommendation for Random Number Generation Using Deterministic Random Bit Generators , 2014 .

[21]  Ueli Maurer,et al.  A universal statistical test for random bit generators , 1990, Journal of Cryptology.

[22]  Pierre L'Ecuyer,et al.  TestU01: A C library for empirical testing of random number generators , 2006, TOMS.

[23]  Riccardo Rovatti,et al.  On Statistical Tests for Randomness Included in the NIST SP800-22 Test Suite and Based on the Binomial Distribution , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security.