Badger - A Fast and Provably Secure MAC

We present Badger, a new fast and provably secure MAC based on universal hashing. In the construction, a modified tree hash that is more efficient than standard tree hashing is used and its security is proven. Furthermore, in order to derive the core hash function of the tree, we use a novel technique for reducing ∆-universal function families to universal families. The resulting MAC is very efficient on standard platforms both for short and long messages. As an example, for a 64-bit

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ACNS
• Authors: Martin Boesgaard, Thomas Christensen, Erik Zenner
• Keywords: ACNS 2005, Cryptography, Modified Tree Hash, Standard Tree Hashing, Universal Hashing