Zero-Correlation Linear Cryptanalysis of Reduced-Round SIMON

In June 2013, the U.S. National Security Agency proposed two families of lightweight block ciphers, called SIMON and SPECK respectively. These ciphers are designed to perform excellently on both hardware and software platforms. In this paper, we mainly present zero-correlation linear cryptanalysis on various versions of SIMON. Firstly, by using missin- the-middle approach, we construct zero-correlation linear distinguishers of SIMON, and zero-correlation linear attacks are presented based on careful analysis of key recovery phase. Secondly, multidimensional zero-correlation linear attacks are used to reduce the data complexity. Our zero-correlation linear attacks perform better than impossible differential attacks proposed by Abed et al. in ePrint Report 2013/568. Finally, we also use the divide-and-conquer technique to improve the results of linear cryptanalysis proposed by Javad et al. in ePrint Report 2013/663.