An evaluation of EPOC-2 ⁄

EPOC-2 is an asymmetric (public-key) hybrid encryption scheme based on the asymmetric cryptosystem of Okamoto and Uchiyama, [13], and the hybrid encryption scheme of Fujisaki and Okamoto, [5]. In simple terms it generates a random key for use with a symmetric cipher and enciphers the message using that symmetric cipher. It then enciphers the key, along with a check value, using the Okamoto-Uchiyama asymmetric encryption scheme. The precise specifications can be found in [10] and an evaluation of the cipher by the designers can be found in [12]. EPOC-2 is an entrant to the NESSIE project [9].