Security Analysis of Software-Oriented Stream Ciphers against Algebraic Attacks

In this paper we consider the security of recently proposed software-orienred stram cipher HELIX, SCREAM, MUGI, and PANAMA against algebraic attacks. Algebraic attack is a key recovery attack by solving an over-defined system of multi-variate equations with input-output pairs of an algorithm. The attack was firstly applied to block ciphers with some algebraic properties and then it has been mon usefully applied to stream ciphers. However it is difficult to obtain over-defined algebraic equations for a given cryptosystem in general. Here we analyze recently proposed software-oriented stream ciphers by constructing a system of equations for each cipher. furthermore we propose three design considerations of software-oriented stream ciphers.