Ascon Lightweight Crypto Toolkit

Ascon Lightweight Crypto Toolkit 1.0

Core Crypto Toolkits

The IAIK-LW Provider for the Java™ Cryptography Extension (JCE) is an implementation of the NIST awarded Ascon algorithm family offering lightweight authenticated encryption, hashing, and Message Authentication Codes.
Ascon is the result of the excellent research work at IAIK. It has been designed at IAIK and has won the NIST competition for standardizing a lightweight authenticated encryption algorithm suitable for constrained environments.
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Main Features

  • Authenticated Encryption: Ascon-128, Ascon-128a, and Ascon-80pq.
    Ascon-128 and Ascon-128a provide 128-bit security against key recovery. The increased key length of Ascon-80pq provides additional protection against exhaustive key search in the case the availability of quantum computers becomes evident.
  • Hashing: Ascon-Hash and Ascon-Hasha providing 128-bit security with a hash size of 256 bits.
  • Pseudorandom Functions (Ascon-Prf and Ascon-Prfa), Message Authentication Codes ( Ascon-Mac and Ascon-Maca), and a fast short-input PRF (Ascon-PrfShort ) for messages up to 128 bits.
  • Written entirely in the Java™ language (Java 8 or higher).

 

Ascon – Designed at IAIK, implemented by SIC
All authors of the Ascon algorithm suite are or were scientists at the Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communications (IAIK) at Graz University of Technology. The close relationship between SIC (being a foundation of IAIK) and IAIK has made it possible to carry out the implementation of Ascon in close collaboration with the algorithm designers themselves.

The current implementation is based on the winning Finalist Submission of the Ascon family to the NIST LWC competition. The final standardized version may differ in its details and will be added once its specification has been finalized by NIST.

Pricing and Licensing

For current prices of the Ascon Lightweight library, please see our price list and license conditions.

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  • Written entirely in the Java™ language guaranteeing cross platform portability
  • Works on all JDK versions; Java 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and compatible.
  • Implementation of the Ascon-128, Ascon-128a, and Ascon-80pq AEAD Algorithms:
    • KeyGenerator, SecretKeyFactory, AlgorithmParameters, Cipher engines
    • The recommended parameters for Ascon-128 and Ascon-128a differ in the block size in which the data is processed and the intermediate permutation rounds.
    • Both variants provide 128-bit security against key recovery.
    • The increased key length of the variant Ascon-80pq provides additional protection against exhaustive key search in the case the availability of quantum computers becomes evident.
  • Implementation of the Ascon-Hash and Ascon-Hasha hashing algorithms:
    • MessageDigest engines
    • Use the same lightweight 320-bit permutation as the authenticated encryption.
    • Both variants, Ascon-Hash and Ascon-Hasha, provide 128-bit security with a hash size of 256 bits.
  • Implementation of the Ascon-Prf, Ascon-Prfa, Ascon-PrfShort Pseudorandom Functions (PRFs) and Ascon-Mac and Ascon-Maca Message Authentication Code algorithms:
    • KeyGenerator, SecretKeyFactory, AlgorithmParameters, Mac engines
    • Use the same lightweight 320-bit permutation as the authenticated encryption.
    • Ascon-Prf and Ascon-Prfa process inputs of arbitrary length and produce outputs of length up to 231-1 bits.
    • Ascon-PrfShort operates only on short inputs ≤ 128 bits producing outputs of short length ≤ 128 bits.
    • The corresponding MAC variants Ascon-Mac and Ascon-Maca are based on Ascon-Prf and Ascon-Prfa and output a fixed size tag of 128 bits.

The current implementation is based on the winning Finalist Submission of the Ascon family to the NIST LWC competition. The final standardized version may differ in its details and will be added once its specification has been finalized by NIST.

Online Javadoc for IAIK-LW.

IAIK-LW 1.0 – 24. November 2023
Class or Package Bug / Change / New Feature Description and Examples
iaik.security.lw.ascon.spi.aead NF

Ascon AEAD Cipher implementations (Ascon-128, Ascon-128a and Ascon-80pq)
iaik.security.lw.ascon.spi.mac NF

Ascon Message Authentication Code and Pseudorandom Function implementations (Ascon-Mac, Ascon-Maca, Ascon-Prf, Ascon-Prfa, Ascon-PrfShort)
iaik.security.lw.ascon.spi.hash NF

Ascon Message Digest Algorithm implementations (Ascon-Hash, Ascon-Hasha)
iaik.security.lw.ascon.spi NF

Ascon AlgorithmParameters, KeyGenerator and SecretKeyFactory implementations
iaik.security.lw.provider NF

JCE Provider for supporting lightweight cryptography
IAIK-LW 1.0 – 24. November 2023
Class or Package Bug / Change / New Feature Description and Examples
iaik.security.lw.ascon.spi.aead NF

Ascon AEAD Cipher implementations (Ascon-128, Ascon-128a and Ascon-80pq)
iaik.security.lw.ascon.spi.mac NF

Ascon Message Authentication Code and Pseudorandom Function implementations (Ascon-Mac, Ascon-Maca, Ascon-Prf, Ascon-Prfa, Ascon-PrfShort)
iaik.security.lw.ascon.spi.hash NF

Ascon Message Digest Algorithm implementations (Ascon-Hash, Ascon-Hasha)
iaik.security.lw.ascon.spi NF

Ascon AlgorithmParameters, KeyGenerator and SecretKeyFactory implementations
iaik.security.lw.provider NF

JCE Provider for supporting lightweight cryptography

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