[Math] Anomalous elliptic curves over finite rings

cryptographyelliptic-curves

I was wondering if it is possible to solve the discrete logarithm on an Elliptic Curve E(Z/nZ) (defined over the ring of integers modulo a composite n) with #E(Z/nZ)=n by applying a method analogous to the Semaev, Satoh-Araki, and Smart attack for anomalous elliptic curves over prime fields.

Best Answer

The condition $\#E(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}) = n$ is not enough, I believe. You would need that $E(\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z})$ is cyclic of order $p$ for all prime divisors $p$ of $n$.

By the Chinese Remainder Theorem, we have $E(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}) = \prod_{p\mid n} E(\mathbb{Z}/p^{k_p}\mathbb{Z})$ where $k_p=\operatorname{ord}_p(n)$. That reduces the problem to prime powers. If $E(\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z})$ is cyclic of order $p$, then you can use the $p$-adic logarithm to solve $E(\mathbb{Z}/p^{k_p}\mathbb{Z})$, too.

Now if $n=pq$ for two distinct primes and $E(\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z})$ has $q$ elements then the $p$-adic logarithm won't help to solve the discrete logarithm there.

This means that the naivest version of using the same idea only works in special cases. But maybe I am missing something.