CMAC & Poly1305: Block-Cipher MACs
Compare CMAC and Poly1305 as alternatives to hash-based MACs.
What Is a MAC?
A Message Authentication Code (MAC) takes a key and a message and produces a tag. The tag proves the message has not been tampered with and was produced by someone who holds the key.
HMAC vs Block-Cipher MACs
HMAC uses a hash function as its primitive. CMAC and Poly1305 instead use block ciphers or polynomial arithmetic. Block-cipher MACs avoid hash-function dependency and integrate naturally with AES hardware.
All lessons in this course
- MAC Concepts & Length-Extension Attacks
- HMAC Construction & Security Proof
- HMAC in APIs: Request Signing
- CMAC & Poly1305: Block-Cipher MACs