Chosen Ciphertext Security with Optimal Ciphertext Overhead

Every public-key encryption scheme has to incorporate a certain amount of randomness into its ciphertexts to provide semantic security against chosen ciphertext attacks (IND-CCA). The difference between the length of a ciphertext and the embedded message is called the ciphertext overhead. While a generic brute-force adversary running in 2t steps gives a theoretical lower bound of t bits on the ciphertext overhead for IND-CPA security, the best known IND-CCA secure schemes demand roughly 2t bits even in the random oracle model. Is the t-bit gap essential for achieving IND-CCA security? We close the gap by proposing an IND-CCA secure scheme whose ciphertext overhead matches the generic lower bound up to a small constant. Our scheme uses a variation of a four-round Feistel network in the random oracle model and hence belongs to the family of OAEP-based schemes. Maybe of independent interest is a new efficient method to encrypt long messages exceeding the length of the permutation while re...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ASIACRYPT
• Authors: Masayuki Abe, Eike Kiltz, Tatsuaki Okamoto
• Keywords: ASIACRYPT 2008, Ciphertext, Ciphertext Overhead, Cryptology, Ind-cca Secure Scheme