Differential Cryptanalysis of the Improved-DLBCA Lightweight Block Cipher

Zhenqiang Wu

¹School of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, Shaanxi Normal University, 710119, Xi’an, China

²Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Network and System Security, Xidian University, 710071, Xi’an, China

³School of Mathematics and Statistics, Shaanxi Normal University, 710119, Xi’an, China

*Corresponding author

As resource-constrained devices become increasingly prevalent in satellite communication systems, evaluating whether lightweight ciphers such as Improved-DLBCA can provide both efficiency and security has become an essential task. Motivated by these practical needs, this paper presents a comprehensive security assessment of Improved-DLBCA, a lightweight block cipher designed specifically for constrained environments. Through SAT-based automated search methods, we perform detailed differential cryptanalysis of the algorithm, identifying optimal 11-round differential characteristics with probability 2−31 and constructing a practical key-recovery attack on 14-round Improved-DLBCA with time complexity 261.5 encryption equivalents. Our results validate the SAT methodology for lightweight cipher analysis and offer important security insights for satellite communication applications.

Block cipher, Lightweight cryptography, Differential cryptanalysis, SAT, Improved-DLBCA

Yige Zhu, Yihui Zhou, Yanping Li, Zhenqiang Wu (2025). Differential Cryptanalysis of the Improved-DLBCA Lightweight Block Cipher. Journal of Networking and Network Applications, Volume 5, Issue 4, pp. 158–164. https://doi.org/10.33969/J-NaNA.2025.050402.

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