@techreport{TR-IC-PFG-21-43, number = {IC-PFG-21-43}, author = {Tomás S. R. Silva and Ricardo Dahab}, title = {{MDS Matrices for Cryptography}}, month = {December}, year = {2021}, institution = {Institute of Computing, University of Campinas}, note = {In English, 43 pages. \par\selectlanguage{english}\textbf{Abstract} Maximum distance separable (MDS) matrices are a key component in several cryptoschemes. One of the most interesting features, from a cryptographic point of view, of MDS matrices is the fact that these provide perfect diffusion for linear layers. \par Thus, this work will not only explore the characteristic of perfect diffusion in MDS layers, but will also demonstrate that the use of MDS matrices is a necessary (but not a sufficient) condition in order to achieve resistance against infinitely long invariant subspace trails attacks in P-SPN linear layers. Moreover, it will also be presented some MDS matrices construction techniques. } }