Differential Attacks on Generalized Feistel Schemes

While generic attacks on classical Feistel schemes and unbalanced Feistel schemes have been studied a lot, generic attacks on several generalized Feistel schemes like type-1, type-2 and type-3 and Alternating Feistel schemes, as defined in [6], have not been systematically investigated. This is the aim of this paper. We give our best Known Plaintext Attacks and non-adaptive Chosen Plaintext Attacks on these schemes and we determine the maximum number of rounds that we can attack. It is interesting to have generic attacks since there are well known block cipher networks that use generalized Feistel schemes: CAST-256 (type-1), RC-6 (type-2), MARS (type-3) and BEAR/LION (alternating). Also, Type-1 and Type-2 Feistel schemes are respectively used in the construction of the hash functions Lesamnta and SHAvite− 3512.