Leveraging Sponge Construction for Chaos-Driven Hash Function Generation

Abstract

Using hashes for user authentication allows systems to verify identity without storing or transmitting plaintext passwords, preventing theft or leakage. At the system level, access is granted if the hash matches and denied if it doesn't. A recent development in this area is chaos-based hashing, though it's not fully matured due to its complex and flawed design principles. This work proposes a novel chaos-based hash using a sponge construction. The design includes a four-state finite automaton to build the chaos structure, with a sponge mechanism for optimal bit mixing. Statistical evaluations show that the proposed hash offers strong diffusion, confusion, collision resistance, and balanced distribution. In addition to its provable security, it extends indifferentiability from random oracles in sponge-based constructions. Moreover, compared to existing chaos-based hashes, the proposed solution achieves superior performance. © 2025 IGI Global. All rights reserved.