AbstractPiccolo is a lightweight block cipher proposed at CHES 2011. This paper firstly gives the zero‐correlation linear approximations over 7‐round Piccolo and studies the security of Piccolo‐128 against multidimensional zero‐correlation linear cryptanalysis. Based on the statistic used in multidimensional linear cryptanalysis to detect the right key and wrong keys, this paper gives the data complexity when using this statistic in multidimensional zero‐correlation linear cryptanalysis. Finally, with partial sum technique and the relation between the round keys in Piccolo‐128, the first known‐plaintexts attacks on round 0–12/round, 15–28/round, and 14–28 of Piccolo‐128 are proposed; the data complexities of those attacks are 256.8/252.43/255.6 known plaintexts, respectively; and the time complexities are 2117.2,2123.09,2126.55, respectively. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.