S. Abrahamyan, M. Kyureghyan. “Linear Cryptanalysis of the SAFER Block Cipher Family” // Proceedings of International Scientific Conference “Computer Science and Information Technologies” CSIT 2009./Yerevan, RA, September28 - October2, 2009- p.109-111.

Abstract - This paper presents a linear cryptanalytic attack against the SAFER family of block ciphers. Linear cryptanalysis is a statistical well-known-plaintext attack that explores (approximate) linear relations between plaintext, ciphertext and subkey bits. These linear relations apply only to certain key classes. The results show that by considering non-homomorphic linear relations, more rounds of the SAFER block cipher family can be attacked. The new attacks pose no threat to any member of the SAFER family.