TOKYO, February 27, 2003 -- Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (President and CEO: Tamotsu Nomakuchi) has announced that its 64-bit block cipher MISTY1 and the 128-bit block cipher Camellia were approved as highly practical and strong cryptographic algorithms by the European project for building an industry-university consensus for future use of primitives called "NESSIE".

NESSIE (New European Schemes for Signatures, Integrity and Encryption) is a three-year project funded by the European Commission and organized by European researchers of cryptography, which was launched in the year 2000. Its main objective is to select and advance a portfolio of strong cryptographic primitives that were obtained and evaluated after an open call and transparent, open processes. As a result of these technical evaluations, the NESSIE board reached the conclusion that both the MISTY1 and Camellia are excellent ciphers in terms of security and practicality. MISTY1 was the only primitive selected in the 64-bit block cipher category and Camellia was selected in the 128-bit block cipher category as well as AES, which is a current U.S. governmental standard.

Mitsubishi Electric has been strongly promoting the information security business since 1996, the year MISTY1 was published. In 2000, KASUMI, which is a variant of MISTY, was adopted as the mandatory standard for the 3G mobile system W-CDMA. MISTY is now internationally acknowledged as a strong and practical cipher. Also in 2000, Mitsubishi Electric and NTT jointly designed the Camellia. Mitsubishi Electric is currently offering these algorithms to various standardization bodies such as the ISO, NESSIE and CRYPTREC for proposal. The Japan Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry have officially approved MISTY1 and Camellia for Japanese governmental use. It is most likely that the NESSIE portfolio will be highly regarded as a vital component in the ISO decision-making process while Mitsubishi Electric's encryption technology becomes increasingly used on a worldwide scale.

MISTY
MISTY was developed by Mitsubishi Electric in 1995 and is a family name of two encryption algorithms MISTY1 and MISTY2, which has the world's highest-level of security and practicability. MISTY1 and MISTY2 are both a 64-bit block cipher with a 128-bit key, which can be used for data communication and electronic commerce in open networks. The MISTY specifications have been published in full.

Camellia
Camellia is a next-generation 128-bit block encryption algorithm jointly developed by Mitsubishi Electric and NTT, and supports three key sizes: 128, 192 and 256 bits. The Camellia specifications have been published in full. Camellia was designed not only for high security levels suitable for the next generation but also for high performance in any target platform such as embedded systems, where low power consumption is mandatory and server computers, where utmost speed is a top priority.

About Mitsubishi Electric
With over 80 years of experience in providing reliable, high-quality products to both corporate clients and general consumers all over the world, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TSE: 6503) is a recognized world leader in the manufacture, marketing and sales of electrical and electronic equipment used in information processing and communications, space development and satellite communications, consumer electronics, industrial technology, energy, transportation and building equipment. The company has operations in 35 countries and recorded consolidated group sales of 3,649 billion yen (US$27.4 billion) in the year ended March 31, 2002. For more information about Mitsubishi Electric, visit Global.MitsubishiElectric.com

 

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