The symmetric-key block cipher SLIM, which was proposed by Aboushosha et al., is a lightweight cryptographic algorithm. Designed for radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, SLIM is a 32-bit block cipher based on the Feistel structure with an 80-bit secret key. We present a higher-order differential attack on reduced-round SLIM. We discovered some 9-round higher-order differential characteristics from computer experimentation. We show that 12-round SLIM is attackable with 2^31 data and 2^77.1 times of encryption using the 31st-order differential characteristic. Because the recommended number of rounds is 32, SLIM is demonstrated as secure against higher-order differential attack.------------------------------This is a preprint of an article intended for publication Journal ofInformation Processing(JIP). This preprint should not be cited. Thisarticle should be cited as: Journal of Information Processing Vol.32(2024) (online)DOI　http://dx.doi.org/10.2197/ipsjjip.32.352------------------------------

The symmetric-key block cipher SLIM, which was proposed by Aboushosha et al., is a lightweight cryptographic algorithm. Designed for radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, SLIM is a 32-bit block cipher based on the Feistel structure with an 80-bit secret key. We present a higher-order differential attack on reduced-round SLIM. We discovered some 9-round higher-order differential characteristics from computer experimentation. We show that 12-round SLIM is attackable with 2^31 data and 2^77.1 times of encryption using the 31st-order differential characteristic. Because the recommended number of rounds is 32, SLIM is demonstrated as secure against higher-order differential attack.------------------------------This is a preprint of an article intended for publication Journal ofInformation Processing(JIP). This preprint should not be cited. Thisarticle should be cited as: Journal of Information Processing Vol.32(2024) (online)DOI　http://dx.doi.org/10.2197/ipsjjip.32.352------------------------------