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Wikipedia mentions ISO10126 Padding has been withdrawn, but doesn't say why. Also there were no news reports about this, as far as I can see.

Why was it withdrawn? Are there security flaws? Is there maybe a new version?

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Indeed, ISO 10126-1:1991 and ISO 10126-2:1991 titled Banking -- Procedures for message encipherment (wholesale) have been withdrawn circa 2007.

The padding specified by ISO 10126 was adding random until the message has length 7 (mod 8) bytes, then adding a byte coding the number of bytes added (including that byte), making the length 0 (mod 8) and suitable for DEA/DES block encryption. The rationale for adding a little randomness is dubious at best; it creates a subliminal channel, for no clear advantage.

I conjecture that the rationale of the withdrawal is not the padding algorithm, but rather the use of single-DEA/DES (56 bit key), which is clearly obsolete and insecure; and availability of other standards for the same purpose.

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  • $\begingroup$ If I remember correctly, the standard does not even specify random bytes, but bytes which can have any value. I can look it up at work if anybody is interested. As the receiver has no way to check for randomness, it does not make much difference though. Note that PKCS 5/7 padding is compatible when sending bytes. Of course, you cannot asume PKCS 5/7 padding when receiving bytes as validating any padding byte except the last one may fail. $\endgroup$
    – Maarten Bodewes ♦
    Feb 25 '12 at 14:36
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for your reply. What do you mean by 'The rationale .. is dubious at best'? Does it have any drawbacks compared to PKCS5? $\endgroup$
    – Dexter
    Feb 26 '12 at 0:25
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    $\begingroup$ @Dexter: I mean that arguably, the benefit of having some random/unspecified bytes added (depriving an attacker of knowledge on plaintext) is outweighed by the drawbacks. In particular, these bytes could become (malignantly or by accident) a subliminal channel leaking sensitive information, e.g. the key, some or some of the plaintext. $\endgroup$
    – fgrieu ♦
    Feb 26 '12 at 21:21
  • $\begingroup$ I'm intrigued by this, wouldn't the fact that two identical plain-texts will have the identical cipher-texts leak information too? (the fact that they are identical) Or should this simply be combated by perturbing the message? $\endgroup$
    – falstro
    Feb 14 '14 at 8:09
  • $\begingroup$ @roe: known plaintext is to be assumed anyway in the context of use of the ISO 10126 standards; therefore there can't be much danger is adding a little more. On the other hand there IS danger in sending nobody-cared-to-check-what-exactly out in the wild. $\endgroup$
    – fgrieu ♦
    Feb 14 '14 at 8:30

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