Large e and Small d (Weiner)

June 13 2017

# # # #

c = 49938873005546615435687311504872509785022284769848698526216639826561007249140360312632267256915204926681345807364733487154803200306964789424438457669341375204871001335059277860364152540205309441986059468568646721718475252818788849738581432943901958543446753508706429359356503196241596325655490713282416769960

n = 142269281344535869088742736116943280058390173908199123033731860167637256284058438570026290267171503564593144579038791106258246936460019066646984380347557856973633574180883795126232851811359705463053986537018379016661776217821802817244947657640746566344862496416333791072979037570103637215724467194819497299907

e = 141211410131186565836904979237284528246734880966191156417995210689827710794052151990500502219902268625710499228242391963419318931769810679560221659007691633465075476338925509588659989483348207094645823751037728970137889820529978911004235927900663723568956034787737608209610740379437975880462460234131696007491

Find the flag.

Solution

The RSA parameter e can be chosen at will, however there are some values of e for which the resulting d will become very small. In the above example, for instance, the e is comparable to the size of n.

For a choice of parameters as this, the RSA has been broken, and in particular, this attack for a large e which results in a computably small d is called as Weiner's attack.

This procedure works out by trying the Euler totient function via a continued fraction approximation of e / N.

How this works exactly, I don't really know.

The implementation part, however is as follows.

Copied shamelessly from 15 ways to break RSA security - Renaud Lifchitz

for f in continued_fraction(e/n).convergents():
    k, d = f.numerator(), f.denominator()
    if k:
        psi2 = int((e * d - 1) / k)
        a, b, c = 1, -(n - psi2 + 1), n
        delta = b * b - 4 * a * c
        if is_square(delta):
            p, q = (-b - sqrt(delta)) / 2 * a, (-b + sqrt(delta)) / 2 * a
            print(p, q)

This gives us p and q.

On breaking RSA as usual, gives us a small d = 4669523849932130508876392554713407521319117239637943224980015676156491

It also gives us the flag.

print(bytes.fromhex(hex(pow(c, d, n))[2:]))
b'flag{overlarge_numbers_might_reveal_large_flaws}'

Flag

flag{overlarge_numbers_might_reveal_large_flaws}


Recommended Reading

Boring Assignment

# # # #

There was once a guy, who hadn't anything to do. So he made haiku.

CTF question, related to cryptography, he presents to you.

Solve you can or not, you must at least try or else, you disappoint him.

  • Flag Format : /FLAG[A-Z]+/

Provided boring...

...

Recommended Reading

Foren-Steg

# # # #

Find the flag, flag finder.

  • Flag Format: /flag{.+}/

Provided foren-steg.docx

Solution

The file provided to us appears to be a docx file. Let us see what happens when we try to open it.

There appears to be nothing in the file but gibberish...

...