Quantum Security of Nonce-Based Encryption
We investigate the quantum security of nonce-based encryption under the indistinguishability against quantum chosen-plaintext attacks (IND-qCPA). While classical results establish that IV-based modes such as CBC, CFB, OFB, and CTR achieve IND-qCPA security, we demonstrate that simply replacing the random IV with a nonce undermines both classical and quantum security. To address this, we propose a general transformation from R-IND-qCPA security to N-IND-qCPA security and introduce enhanced variants, namely, CBC2, CFB2, OFB2, and CTR2, that are provably secure in the nonce-based quantum setting. We further show that nonce-based stream cipher encryption inherently satisfies N-IND-qCPA security. These results provide a systematic framework for upgrading IV-based constructions to secure nonce-based counterparts, thereby strengthening practical symmetric encryption against quantum adversaries.
Authors
- Shuping Mao
- Bing Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1155-5349)
- Peng Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8003-4686)
- Gang Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7379-1988)
- Yan Jia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0689-2508)
Institutions
- Beijing Electronic Science and Technology Institute (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Cryptology (CN)
- Institute of Information Engineering (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Entropy
- Published
- 2025-11-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/e27121194
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Cryptography and Data Security
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.48
Funders
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities