Some remarks on the TKIP key mixing function of IEEE 802.11i

Temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP) is a sub-protocol of IEEE 802.11i. TKIP remedies some security flaws in wired equivalent privacy (WEP) protocol. TKIP adds four new algorithms to WEP: a message integrity code (MIC) called Michael, an initialization vector (IV) sequencing discipline, a key mixing function and a re-keying mechanism. The key mixing function, also called temporal key hash, de-correlates the IVs from weak keys. Some cryptographic properties of the substitution box (S-box) used in the key mixing function are investigated in this paper, such as regularity, avalanche effect, differ uniform and linear structure. Moen et al pointed out that there existed a temporal key recovery attack in TKIP key mixing function. In this paper a method is proposed to defend against the attack, and the resulting effect on performance is discussed.