Cryptanalysis of Curl-P and Other Attacks on the IOTA Cryptocurrency
Ethan Heilman, Neha Narula, Garrett Tanzer, James Peter Thomas. Lovejoy, Michael Colavita, Madars Virza, Tadge Dryja
Abstract
We present attacks on the cryptography formerly used in the IOTA blockchain, including under certain conditions the ability to forge signatures. We developed practical attacks on IOTA’s cryptographic hash function Curl-P-27, allowing us to quickly generate short colliding messages. These collisions work even for messages of the same length. Exploiting these weaknesses in Curl-P-27, we broke the EUCMA security of the former IOTA Signature Scheme (ISS). Finally, we show that in a chosen-message setting we could forge signatures and multi-signatures of valid spending transactions (called bundles in IOTA).
Topics & Concepts
Hash functionCryptanalysisComputer scienceCryptographyComputer securityCryptographic hash functionCryptocurrencySignature (topology)Curl (programming language)Theoretical computer scienceMathematicsWorld Wide WebGeometryCryptography and Data SecurityBlockchain Technology Applications and SecurityCoding theory and cryptography