In this paper we examine the security criteria for a KEM and a DEM that are sufficient for the overall hybrid encryption scheme to be plaintext-aware in the standard model. We apply this theory to the Cramer-Shoup hybrid scheme acting on fixed length messages and deduce that the Cramer-Shoup scheme is plaintext-aware in the standard model. This answers a previously open conjecture of Bellare and Palacio on the existence of plaintext-aware encryption schemes.
Alexander W. Dent