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In this paper, we propose an improved preimage attack against 2-round Ascon-XOF-64 with a complexity of <jats:inline-formula>\n              <jats:alternatives>\n                <jats:tex-math>$$2^{33}$$<\/jats:tex-math>\n                <mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\">\n                  <mml:msup>\n                    <mml:mn>2<\/mml:mn>\n                    <mml:mn>33<\/mml:mn>\n                  <\/mml:msup>\n                <\/mml:math>\n              <\/jats:alternatives>\n            <\/jats:inline-formula> via a more effective guessing strategy. Furthermore, we successfully extend our preimage attack on 2-round Ascon-XOF-64 to 2-round Ascon-XOF-128, achieving a complexity of <jats:inline-formula>\n              <jats:alternatives>\n                <jats:tex-math>$$2^{97}$$<\/jats:tex-math>\n                <mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\">\n                  <mml:msup>\n                    <mml:mn>2<\/mml:mn>\n                    <mml:mn>97<\/mml:mn>\n                  <\/mml:msup>\n                <\/mml:math>\n              <\/jats:alternatives>\n            <\/jats:inline-formula>, which is currently the best preimage attack against 2-round Ascon-XOF-128. Apart from the preimage attack, we also investigate the resistance of Ascon-HASH against collision attacks. To be specific, we introduce the linearization of the inverse of S-boxes and then propose a free-start collision attack on 3-round Ascon-HASH with a complexity of <jats:inline-formula>\n              <jats:alternatives>\n                <jats:tex-math>$$2^{14}$$<\/jats:tex-math>\n                <mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\">\n                  <mml:msup>\n                    <mml:mn>2<\/mml:mn>\n                    <mml:mn>14<\/mml:mn>\n                  <\/mml:msup>\n                <\/mml:math>\n              <\/jats:alternatives>\n            <\/jats:inline-formula> using a differential trail searched dedicatedly. In addition, we construct different 2-round connectors using the linearization of the inverse of S-boxes and successfully extend the collision attack to 4 rounds and 5 rounds of Ascon-HASH with complexities of <jats:inline-formula>\n              <jats:alternatives>\n                <jats:tex-math>$$2^{18}$$<\/jats:tex-math>\n                <mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\">\n                  <mml:msup>\n                    <mml:mn>2<\/mml:mn>\n                    <mml:mn>18<\/mml:mn>\n                  <\/mml:msup>\n                <\/mml:math>\n              <\/jats:alternatives>\n            <\/jats:inline-formula> and <jats:inline-formula>\n              <jats:alternatives>\n                <jats:tex-math>$$2^{41}$$<\/jats:tex-math>\n                <mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\">\n                  <mml:msup>\n                    <mml:mn>2<\/mml:mn>\n                    <mml:mn>41<\/mml:mn>\n                  <\/mml:msup>\n                <\/mml:math>\n              <\/jats:alternatives>\n            <\/jats:inline-formula>, respectively. Although our attacks do not compromise the security of the full 12-round Ascon-XOF and Ascon-HASH, they provide some insights into Ascon\u2019s security.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1186\/s42400-024-00340-7","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,24]],"date-time":"2025-05-24T01:02:28Z","timestamp":1748048548000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Preimage and collision attacks on reduced Ascon using algebraic strategies"],"prefix":"10.1186","volume":"8","author":[{"given":"Qinggan","family":"Fu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Ye","family":"Luo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Qianqian","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9298-7313","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ling","family":"Song","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"340_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Baek S, Kim G, Kim J (2024) Preimage attacks on reduced-round Ascon-Xof. 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