S-box optimisation using heuristic methods

Abstract

Isa et al. (2013, 2016) proposed two heuristic algorithms (redundancy removal and bee waggle dance) to construct cryptographically strong substitution boxes (S-boxes). The resulting S-boxes produced by these algorithms are suitable for cryptographic use. Inspired by their work, this paper explores a new method to optimise an S-box by integrating these two algorithms. Our experiments show that at least three cryptographically strong S-boxes can be produced by the new method. The results also improves upon a previous construction by Mamadolimov et al. (2013) which utilises the redundancy removal algorithm. © 2016, Institute for Mathematical Research (INSPEM). All rights reserved.