Abstract
In 2023, NIST has selected Ascon as the new standard for lightweight cryptography. The Ascon v1.2 family provides authenticated encryption, hash functions, and extendable output functions, all using the same Ascon permutation. The main use case of Ascon is to provide efficient cryptographic primitives for resource-constraint devices. While additional primitives can be built on top of the existing Ascon functions, dedicated schemes are often more efficient. In this paper, we enrich the functionality of Ascon by providing efficient Pseudorandom Functions (PRFs), Message Authentication Codes (MACs), and a fast short-input PRF for messages up to 128 bits.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank all researchers contributing to the design, analysis, and implementation of Ascon. In particular, we want to thank Hannes Gross and Robert Primas for all their support and various implementations of Ascon. Furthermore, we want to thank Bart Mennink for giving feedback on this document.
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Dobraunig, C., Eichlseder, M., Mendel, F., Schläffer, M. (2024). Ascon MAC, PRF, and Short-Input PRF. In: Oswald, E. (eds) Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2024. CT-RSA 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14643. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58868-6_15
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