Cryptanalysis of PRINCEv2 using Biclique structures

This paper presents a comprehensive cryptanalysis of PRINCEv2 , a lightweight block cipher optimized for low-latency applications. Using biclique cryptanalysis, we expose vulnerabilities in its design, particularly in its updated key schedule and middle layer operations. While PRINCEv2 was designed to resist biclique cryptanalysis, our findings indicate that such attacks remain feasible. We propose two novel single-key attacks on the full-round PRINCEv2 , one based on biclique structures and the other improving upon it with a Sieve-in-the-Middle (SIM) based attack, achieving key recovery with time complexities of 2 125 . 95 and 2 125 . 66 , respectively, with practical data and memory complexities. We further mounted a reduced-round biclique cryptanalysis on PRINCEv2 . These findings provide critical insights into the cipher’s security margins, challenging prior assumptions and underlining the need for addressing structural vulnerabilities in lightweight cryptographic algorithms.