A linear decomposition attack

Abstract

We discuss a new attack, termed a dimension or linear decomposition attack, on several known group-based cryptosystems. This attack gives a polynomial time deterministic algorithm that recovers the secret shared key from the public data in all this schemes under consideration. Furthemore, we show that in this case, contrary to the common opinion, the typical computational security assumptions are not very relevant to the security of the schemes, i.e., one can break the schemes without solving the algorithmic problems on which the assumptions are based. The efficacy of the attack depends on the platform group, so it requires a more thorough analysis in each particular case.