Block Cipher Modes of Operation - Cipher Feedback (CFB)

Cipher Feedback (CFB)

The cipher feedback (CFB) mode, a close relative of CBC, makes a block cipher into a self-synchronizing stream cipher. Operation is very similar; in particular, CFB decryption is almost identical to CBC encryption performed in reverse:

This simplest way of using CFB described above is not any more self-synchronizing than other cipher modes like CBC. If a whole blocksize of ciphertext is lost both CBC and CFB will synchronize, but losing only a single byte or bit will permanently throw off decryption. To be able to synchronize after the loss of only a single byte or bit, a single byte or bit must be encrypted at a time. CFB can be used this way when combined with a shift register as the input for the block cipher.

To use CFB to make a self-synchronizing stream cipher that will synchronize for any multiple of x bits lost, start by initializing a shift register the size of the block size with the initialization vector. This is encrypted with the block cipher, and the highest x bits of the result are XOR'ed with x bits of the plaintext to produce x bits of ciphertext. These x bits of output are shifted into the shift register, and the process repeats with the next x bits of plaintext. Decryption is similar, start with the initialization vector, encrypt, and XOR the high bits of the result with x bits of the ciphertext to produce x bits of plaintext. Then shift the x bits of the ciphertext into the shift register. This way of proceeding is known as CFB-8 or CFB-1 (according to the size of the shifting).

In notation, where S_i is the ith state of the shift register, a << x is a shifted up x bits, head(a, x) is the x highest bits of a and n is number of bits of IV:

If x bits are lost from the ciphertext, the cipher will output incorrect plaintext until the shift register once again equals a state it held while encrypting, at which point the cipher has resynchronized. This will result in at most one blocksize of output being garbled.

Like CBC mode, changes in the plaintext propagate forever in the ciphertext, and encryption cannot be parallelized. Also like CBC, decryption can be parallelized. When decrypting, a one-bit change in the ciphertext affects two plaintext blocks: a one-bit change in the corresponding plaintext block, and complete corruption of the following plaintext block. Later plaintext blocks are decrypted normally.

CFB shares two advantages over CBC mode with the stream cipher modes OFB and CTR: the block cipher is only ever used in the encrypting direction, and the message does not need to be padded to a multiple of the cipher block size (though ciphertext stealing can also be used to make padding unnecessary).