Rotation-k Affine-Power-Affine-like Multiple Substitution-Boxes for Secure Communication

Abstract

Substitution boxes with thorough cryptographic strengths are essential for the development of strong encryption systems. They are the only portions capable of inducing nonlinearity in symmetric encryption systems. Bijective substitution boxes having both high nonlinearities and high algebraic complexities are the most desirable to thwart linear, differential and algebraic attacks. In this paper, a method of constructing algebraically complex and cryptographically potent multiple substitution boxes is proposed. The multiple substitution boxes are synthesized by applying the concept of rotation-k approach on the affine-power-affine structure. It is shown that the rotation-k approach inherits all the features of affine-power-affine structure. Performance assessment of all the proposed substitution boxes is done against nonlinearity, strict avalanche criteria, bits independent criteria, differential probability, linear approximation probability and algebraic complexity. It has been found that the proposed substitution boxes have outstanding cryptographic characteristics and outperform the various recent substitution boxes.

Keywords: symmetric encryption; substitution boxes; affine-power-affine structure; rotation-k approach; nonlinearity; algebraic complexity;