Abstract. In this paper, we present a new technique for Matsui's algorithm 2 using multidimensional linear approximation. We show that the data complexity of the attack can be reduced significantly by our method even when the linear hull effect is present. We apply our method to the key recovery attack on 5-round Serpent and demonstrate that our attack is superior to previous attacks. We present evidence that it is theoretically possible to reduce the data complexity of the linear attack against 10 round Serpent by factor of 220 when multiple approximations are used.