HCAHF: A New Family of CA-based Hash Functions

Cryptographic hash functions (CHF) represent a core cryptographic primitive. They have application in digital signature and message authentication protocols. Their main building block are Boolean functions. Those functions provide pseudo-randomness and sensitivity to the input. They also help prevent and lower the risk of attacks targeted at CHF. Cellular automata (CA) are a class of Boolean functions that exhibit good cryptographic properties and display a chaotic behavior. In this article, a new hash function based on CA is proposed. A description of the algorithm and the security measures to increase the robustness of the construction are presented. A security analysis against generic and dedicated attacks is included. It shows that the hashing algorithm has good security features and meet the security requirements of a good hashing scheme. The results of the tests and the properties of the CA used demonstrate the good statistical and cryptographic properties of the hash function.

@article{Sadak2019,
  title     = {HCAHF: A New Family of CA-based Hash Functions},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {10},
  number    = {12},
  year      = {2019},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Anas Sadak and Fatima Ezzahra Ziani and Bouchra Echandouri and Charifa Hanin and Fouzia Omary},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2019.0101267},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2019.0101267}
}