Let\'s say that Alice and Bob complete a key exchange and then Alice uses that k
ID: 649497 • Letter: L
Question
Let's say that Alice and Bob complete a key exchange and then Alice uses that key k1 to encrypt a 256-bit key kaes1 and sends it to Bob. From there, Alice and Bob exchange a lot of messages back and forth, using AES-256 to symmetrically encrypt the data with the key kaes1.
Then, Charlie comes along and wants to participate, so Alice and Charlie complete a key exchange and Alice then uses that key k2 to encrypt the same original kaes1 and sends it over to Charlie. From there, Alice and Bob and Charlie now exchange a bunch of messages symmetrically encrypted with AES-256.
Eve has been listening in this whole time, and she has all the data, but none of the keys. Does Eve gain an advantage if she knows that kaes1 was the payload for 2 different messages encrypted with 2 different keys k1 and k2?
Explanation / Answer
No. This does not help Eve the eavesdropper. AES is secure against known-plaintext attacks, so knowing that the same plaintext (kaes1) was encrypted under two different keys (k1 and k2) does not help her to recover any of the keys or break of the traffic.
Of course, it still might not be a good idea to do what you suggested: there might be other reasons not to do that (as CodesInChaos explains succinctly).
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