ECIES PROTOCOL WITH ISSUER AUTHENTICATION

Abstract

A hybrid encryption scheme is a cryptographic algorithm that can be built from two different phases: a key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) based on public key encryption, and a data encapsulation mechanism (DEM) based on a private key encryption scheme. The main advantage of hybrid cryptographic schemes is that they offer solutions to the problem of symmetric key exchange and the problem of efficiency typical of asymmetric encryption schemes. An example of a hybrid cryptographic algorithm is the Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES). ECIES is incorporated as international standard, however this protocol does not provide issuer authentication which is a drawback in many practical applications. This paper presents a secure, efficient and authenticated variant of ECIES protocol. The modification is based on the substitution of the mechanism for generating shared secret values included in the ECIES, for a one-pass authenticated key agreement protocol. This protocol is included in a cryptographic file-protection system which is used today in many practical applications and scenarios