SM4 (cipher)

"SMS4" redirects here. For the satellite, see Synchronous Meteorological Satellite.

SM4

General
Designers	Data Assurance & Communication Security Center, Academy of Sciences
First published	2006 (declassified; standardized March 21, 2012)
Cipher detail
Key sizes	128 bits
Block sizes	128 bits
Structure	unbalanced Feistel network
Rounds	32
Best public cryptanalysis
Linear and differential attacks against 22 rounds

SM4 (formerly SMS4) is a block cipher used in the Chinese National Standard for Wireless LAN WAPI (WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure).

SM4 was a cipher proposed to for the IEEE 802.11i standard, but has so far been rejected by ISO. One of the reasons for the rejection has been opposition to the WAPI fast-track proposal by the IEEE.

The SM4 algorithm was drafted by Data Assurance & Communication Security Center, CAS, and Commercial Cryptogrophy Testing Center, National Cryptography Administration. It is mainly developed by Lü Shuwang (Chinese: 吕述望). The algorithm was declassified in January, 2006, and it became a national standard (GB/T 32907-2016) in August 2016.

Cipher detail

The SM4 cipher has a key size and a block size of 128 bits each. Encryption or decryption of one block of data is composed of 32 rounds. A non-linear key schedule is used to produce the round keys and the decryption uses the same round keys as for encryption, except that they are in reversed order.

Keys and key parameters

The length of encryption keys is 128 bits, represented as $MK=(MK_{0},\ MK_{1},\ MK_{2},\ MK_{3})$, in which $MK_{i}\ (i=0,\ 1,\ 2,\ 3)$ is a 32-bit word.

A round key is represented as $(rk_{0},\ rk_{1},\ \ldots ,\ rk_{31})$, where each $rk_{i}(i=0,\ \ldots ,\ 31)$ is a word. It is generated by the encryption key.

$FK=(FK_{0},\ FK_{1},\ FK_{2},\ FK_{3})$ is a system parameter.

$CK=(CK_{0},\ CK_{1},\ \ldots ,\ CK_{31})$ is a fixed parameter, used to generate $rk_{i}$.

$FK_{i}$ and $CK_{i}$ are words, used for extension of the algorithm.

Round

Each round are computed from the four previous round outputs $X_{i},X_{i+1},X_{i+2},X_{i+3}$ such that: $X_{i+4}=X_{i}\oplus F(X_{i+1}\oplus X_{i+2}\oplus X_{i+3}\oplus rk_{i})$

Where $F$ is a substitution function composed of a non-linear transform, the S-box and linear transform $L$

S-box

S-box is fixed for 8-bit input and 8-bit output, noted as Sbox(). As with AES, the S-box is based on the multiplicative inverse over GF(2⁸). The affine transforms and polynomial bases are different from that of AES, but due to affine isomorphism it can be calculated efficiently given an AES Rijndael S-box.

Remark

On March 21, 2012, the Chinese government published the industrial standard "GM/T 0002-2012 SM4 Block Cipher Algorithm", officially renaming SMS4 to SM4.

A description of SM4 in English is available as an Internet Draft. It contains a reference implementation in ANSI C.

SM4 is part of the ARMv8.4-A expansion to the ARM architecture.

External links

• Linear and Differential Cryptanalysis of Reduced SMS4 Block Cipher
• Example of SMS4 implemented as a Spreadsheet
• Page of Lu Shu-wang (吕述望) (in Chinese)
• The GmSSL Project (OpenSSL fork with GuoMi algorithms)