On committing security of PMAC, LightMAC, and UMAC
Abstract
Abstract Recently, the concept of committing message authentication codes (MACs) was proposed at Crypto 2024, following the definition of committing authenticated encryption (AE). A secure committing MAC requires that it is infeasible for any adversary to find two different key and message pairs that generate the same tag. In this paper, we present committing attacks against PMAC, LightMAC, and UMAC, demonstrating that these MACs are not CMT secure. We also provide a CMT-K security proof for UMAC. Furthermore, we introduce two general methods for constructing one-key and two-key MACs with CMT-K security.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Cryptographic Implementations and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Coding theory and cryptography
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Cybersecurity
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Publication date
- 10 February 2026
- Language
- EN